And the gig economy, estimated to be worth half a trillion dollars in 2023 and employing 38% of the U.S. workforce, is becoming their latest target — with more than a third of U.S. consumers report being victims of fraud on gig platforms, a rate 10 times higher than any other fraud circumstance.

“The challenge is that anyone can join these platforms … therefore, the bad folks do as well,” Rodger Desai, CEO at Prove Identity, told PYMNTS’ CEO Karen Webster, explaining that the open nature of platforms like DoorDash and Uber — as well as their fundamental utility — make them attractive targets for bad actors.

Many gig economy platforms allow users to operate under pseudonyms or remain anonymous. While this can provide privacy for legitimate users, it also opens the door for fraudsters to create multiple fake accounts or impersonate others without fear of immediate detection. This anonymity makes it challenging to track and hold scammers accountable.

The challenge in fighting fraud within the gig economy, Desai said, lies in balancing security with the need for rapid onboarding and user convenience.

Establishing a Trust Network

As the gig economy grows, so do the techniques used by fraudsters. From phishing scams and account takeovers to synthetic identity fraud and fake reviews, the evolving nature of fraud in the gig economy requires constant vigilance. Fraudsters often stay ahead of security measures, exploiting new technologies and vulnerabilities as they arise.

Against this backdrop, Desai said established trust networks like those used by credit card companies and mobile phone operators can prove to be a powerful tool in fighting fraud.

“Networks like Visa and Mastercard have done a great job of creating a circle of trust. You and I can jump on a plane and go to Thailand and have lunch somewhere, and that merchant will know they’ll get paid in their currency … in the same way you can go anywhere in the world and make a phone call,” he said. “The question is, how do you apply that to the gig economy?”

Implementing a system of “check marks” to verify users while maintaining their privacy, Desai said, could be one promising solution.

Under this system, users could maintain anonymity on the platform while still being verified. For example, a user could choose a pseudonym like “Taylor Swift” but have a check mark next to their name, indicating to other users that they have been verified by the platform.

This approach aims to create accountability without compromising privacy.

“You should be anonymous until you don’t have the right to be,” Desai said, explaining that in cases of law-breaking or terms of service violations, platforms could “break the glass” to access the user’s real identity.

The proposed system relies heavily on phone-based verification, and Desai noted that his company has developed technology that can tie phone numbers to real-world identities with high accuracy, even as users change phone numbers or devices. This persistent identity token, he explained, could form the basis of a durable verification system.

Phone-Based Digital ID Tokens

Importantly, the approach elaborated on by Desai would allow for varying levels of information sharing. Users could choose to share as little as confirming they are human, or as much as their spending habits and travel preferences, depending on their comfort level and the benefits offered by the platform.

However, implementing such a system faces challenges. It would require widespread adoption to be effective, and platforms would need to carefully consider how to incorporate it into their terms of service. There are also questions about how to handle global verification, given the vast differences in identity documentation and phone usage worldwide.

Still, “It’s a vital need that exists,” said Desai, noting that Prove has “just launched into this general category of trust and safety within the gig economy.”

And with the rise of artificial intelligence-generated content and deepfakes, being able to verify the authenticity of both users and content is critical.

While it remains to be seen how such systems will be implemented and adopted, one thing is clear: As fraud in the gig economy and beyond it continues to rise, innovative approaches to digital identity and verification will be crucial in maintaining trust in our digital world.

“Over time, you’re probably only going to trust things that have been signed and verified,” said Desai, predicting that verification systems may soon come to extend beyond user profiles to content itself. 

The post Circle of Trust: How Digital Identities Can Secure the Gig Economy Against Fraud appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

In a recent paper published on arXiv, researchers from OpenAI and MIT introduced the concept of “personhood credentials.” The proposed solution would allow users to verify their authenticity without revealing their identities, potentially reshaping how consumers establish trust in eCommerce and other online interactions.

The paper said that as AI advances, traditional methods of verifying human users, such as CAPTCHAs, are becoming obsolete.

“The line between human and AI-generated content is rapidly blurring,” it said, highlighting the urgency of developing new authentication methods.

The proposed personhood credential system would leverage cryptographic techniques to create a unique identifier for each user, which could be presented to verify human status without disclosing personal information. This balance between security and privacy could have far-reaching implications for online commerce, social media platforms and other digital environments where verifying human participation is crucial.

“Businesses could implement stronger controls against automated bots, reducing the volume of fraudulent transactions and ensuring that people know when they’re interacting with other people,” Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Senior Member Kayne McGladrey told PYMNTS. This could be particularly beneficial in industries where trust and verification are crucial, such as financial services and eCommerce.

Impact on eCommerce

The researchers believe the credentials could be issued by various “trusted institutions,” such as governments and service providers like Google and Apple, which already require users to log in with an ID.

Global adoption is essential for these systems to be effective. Researchers are urging governments, technologists, companies and standards bodies to collaborate and establish a universal standard.

The system’s potential benefits extend beyond fraud prevention. Businesses can reduce the risk of account takeovers and identity theft by providing a secure and decentralized way to verify identities. This added layer of security could boost consumer confidence in online transactions, potentially driving growth in eCommerce and other digital services.

For eCommerce retailers, the concept of personhood credentials represents a solution to long-standing challenges. Darren Williams, chief AI officer at Flux and former CTO for several eCommerce retailers, views it as a potential “golden bullet” for protecting online transactions.

“eCommerce companies could use ‘personhood credentials’ to verify the authenticity of customers’ identities, in the same way the cryptocurrency industry uses blockchain technology and ledger validation to verify millions of transactions around the world,” Williams told PYMNTS.

Challenges and Future Regulations

However, implementing such a system faces hurdles. One of the primary challenges is striking the right balance between privacy and security. The system would need to utilize advanced cryptographic techniques that are secure, scalable and user friendly.

Widespread adoption is another challenge. For personhood credentials to be effective, they must be accepted by various businesses and digital platforms. This would require convincing various stakeholders to adopt a new standard that may initially seem complex or burdensome. In a competitive market where proprietary solutions are often favored, achieving this level of cooperation could prove difficult.

Security concerns also loom. As McGladrey said, threat actors would likely constantly attack centralized personhood credential providers. However, the level of encryption used in such a system may improve current security measures.

The rise of AI-driven fraud will likely push regulators to establish stricter policies governing online commerce. As AI systems become more adept at mimicking human behavior, the potential for large-scale, automated fraud and misinformation campaigns increases. This could lead to a loss of trust in digital platforms, prompting regulators to step in to protect consumers and businesses.

Future regulatory policies may mandate using personhood credentials or similar verification systems to ensure that online transactions and interactions are genuine. Additionally, regulators might push for more robust digital identity frameworks incorporating privacy-preserving technologies to combat the growing threat of AI-driven deception.

Williams said that in the future, there may be “more emphasis on intelligent tools that can detect and flag suspicious activity in real-time, and more stringent regulations around the use of AI in online transactions.” This shift toward AI-powered detection and prevention could reshape the regulatory landscape for online commerce.

The European Union, known for its pro-privacy stance, might adopt such technologies first.

“We may see draft proposals from EU member states based on the concept of personhood credentials,” McGladrey said. This could set a precedent for other regions to follow, potentially leading to a global standard for digital identity verification.

The need for privacy-preserving identity verification systems will likely grow as AI evolves. Developing personhood credentials represents a significant step in the ongoing conversation about trust and authenticity in the digital age. It offers a potential solution to the increasing challenge of distinguishing between human and AI-generated content and interactions online.

While implementation and adoption remain challenges, the concept of personhood credentials provides a potential framework for establishing human identity in digital spaces while maintaining individual privacy and autonomy.

“The development of ‘personhood credentials’ is just the beginning of this conversation, and I’m excited to see how it will shape the future of online commerce,” Williams said.

The post AI’s Human Mimicry Spurs ‘Personhood Credential’ Proposal appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The country canceled the $1.2 billion project amid warnings of cost overruns and possible funding irregularities, Bloomberg reported Tuesday (Sept. 3).

Richard Ilunga, director general of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s National Office for Population Identification (ONIP), told Bloomberg that the project was canceled on Aug. 12 following a meeting of government officials and representatives of the companies that were to have built the project: French biometrics firm Idemia and an intermediary called Afritech.

Ilunga did not give a reason for the cancellation of the contract, according to the report.

The report said the meeting was held three days after an Aug. 9 Bloomberg report that said the World Bank declined to finance the project because there hadn’t been a competitive tendering process; civic servants in ONIP said there were “worrying elements” in the companies’ proposal; and the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Inspectorate General of Finance raised concerns about the cost and proposed financing system for the project.

In its Tuesday report, Bloomberg said Idemia confirmed the cancelation of the project but said it couldn’t answer questions about financing because of its contract with Afritech. Afritech CEO Samba Bathily didn’t respond to Bloomberg’s questions, per the report.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo had hoped to implement a biometric identity system because the country currently has no national ID system, per the report. The lack of such a system makes it more difficult for citizens to open bank accounts and perform other tasks.

Biometric authentication — which uses fingerprints, facial features or iris patterns — is one of the latest frontiers in the ongoing evolution of payments, PYMNTS reported in May.

In another application of the technology, IDEMIA Public Security North America and My Family ID said in August that they partnered to use IDEMIA’s biometric-based solutions to help families capture a photo, fingerprints or other identification information for their children for use in case a child or other family member ever goes missing.

In July, IDEMIA said it teamed up with Samsung to bring mobile IDs to Iowa, allowing the state’s residents to store their mobile ID in their Samsung Wallet.

The post Report: Democratic Republic of the Congo Cancels Digital Identity Project appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The FinTech conglomerate announced Thursday (Aug. 29) that it was working with the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), a division of the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), to identify standards for mobile driver’s licenses, or MDLs.

“Whether boarding a plane, creating a bank account, or making an online purchase, mobile driver’s licenses and other digital credentials have the potential to improve the way we conduct transactions, both in person and online,” said Bill Fisher, co-lead of the NIST mDL project.

“To help realize this potential, the NCCoE is collaborating with more than a dozen partners from across the mDL ecosystem to build out reference implementations and to accelerate the adoption of mDL standards and best practices,” Fisher added.

According to a news release, Block is part of a consortium of companies involved in the project, and will lobby for the implementation of “established, open standards” for digital identity tools, which the company says allow for greater transparency and security while reducing the risk that consumers will be wedded to proprietary systems from individual vendors.

“Digital identity is a major focus for TBD, a part of Block that is building decentralized technologies,” the release said. “Building on open standards from the W3C, the OpenID Foundation, the Decentralized Identity Foundation, and others, TBD and its partners are developing digital identity technology that will give individuals greater control over their online identity and data while making the financial system more efficient, secure, and accessible.”

In addition to Block, other participants in the project include the motor vehicle departments of California, New York and Maryland, JP Morgan Chase, Microsoft, Wells Fargo and the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate, NIST said last week.

PYMNTS spoke last year with Mike Brock, CEO of TBD, about the company’s efforts in the digital identity space.

“We never really thought about, what does it mean to identify a person on the internet in a way that is portable,” Brock said. “Nothing is really practicable without a strong way to do identity … you have to know who people are, and you have to know who you can trust. All the roads in are around digital identity.”

And as noted here earlier this year, there are now more than 20 states working toward adopting mobile driver’s licenses for their residents, while Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and Maryland support mobile IDs on the iPhone’s Apple Wallet. And TSA has piloted a program for accepting digital IDs, and even touchless biometric access, at some airports.

The post Block Joins NIST Program to Promote Mobile Driver’s Licenses appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

As the European Commission (EC) noted on its website recently, the wallet “will be a secure and easy way for European citizens, residents and businesses to prove who they are when accessing digital services,” letting them “safely obtain, store and share important digital documents about yourself and electronically sign or seal documents.”

The wallets, the website noted, will make it easier to safely provide documents to open a bank account, enroll in school overseas or apply for jobs.

The program comes in the wake of Europe’s Digital Identity Regulation, which came into force in May 2024, and is designed to “enable the digital transformation of the public sector, allowing for more services to be accessed digitally, including across borders.”

In the meantime, the EC has been conducting pilot programs — set to wrap up next year — that explore the various use cases for the wallets. These include payments, as the wallets are designed to offer users a single way to identify themselves to all your bank accounts and authorize transactions.

The EC’s efforts are happening at a moment when the intertwined future of biometrics and digital identity has begun to transform payments, as noted here earlier this month.

“As digital wallets increasingly gain traction, the security features driving their use are emerging as components shaping the future of both commerce and authentication,” that report said.

“With the European Union’s eIDAS 2.0 (electronic identification, authentication and trust services) regulation 2026 compliance deadline approaching, using the intersection of digital ID and biometrics to provide enhanced security, improved user experiences and greater fraud prevention is top of mind for the payments industry.”

Research from the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Digital Bill Payments: Mobile Wallets Gain Popularity, but Hurdles Remain” found that 60% of consumers used mobile wallets to pay their bills in 2023, up 22% from the year before.

“With the world that we live in, digital identities are becoming more used than physical driver’s licenses or physical passports,” ACI Worldwide Global Fraud Prevention Risk Services Vice President Erika Dietrich told PYMNTS in September.

Still, for biometric-enabled digital IDs — and the wallets holding them — to gain broad acceptance, complex standards must be introduced that ensure interoperability and trust, PYMNTS wrote.

“Biometric authentication, while it exists for other aspects of our lives, is not a huge thing at this stage for payments — but as far as payments goes, it is the future,” Marc Hopkins, vice president at E-Complish, said in an interview here last month.

The post EU Continues Testing Digital Identity Wallets appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The first efforts of the organizations’ Mobilizing Access to the Digital Economy (MADE) Alliance: Africa will include providing digital identities and access to high-quality seeds and agricultural inputs to 3 million farmers in Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria, according to a Friday (May 24) press release.

Following the pilot program launched in partnership with local banks, the alliance plans to expand to the rest of the continents, according to the release.

“Across Africa, people are driving new growth and opportunity, and Mastercard wants to support their success,” Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach said in the release.

Over the next five years, Mastercard will register 15 million users in Africa onto Community Pass, its platform that digitizes and connects remote, underserved communities to governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the private sector, per the release.

The African Development Bank Group will support programs of the MADE Alliance: Africa by investing $300 million to fund digital infrastructure and incentivize public and private partners to enhance digital access, according to the release.

Digitalization will increase the adoption of agricultural technologies and increase the incomes of African smallholder farmers, African Development Bank Group President Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina said in the release.

“Joining the Mobilizing Access to the Digital Economy Alliance: Africa will amplify and multiply the impact of the bank’s investments to build sustainable, climate-smart food systems across the continent,” Adesina said.

In March, Mastercard partnered with MTN Group Fintech to help consumers and small businesses across Africa transact through mobile payments.

With this partnership, Mastercard’s technology will support MTN’s FinTech platform, which has 290 million subscribers and 60 million active monthly MTN Mobile Money wallets.

In January, Mastercard teamed up with banking-as-a-service (BaaS) provider 4thWave to streamline B2B payment flows for businesses in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

The partnership will use 4thWave’s supply chain finance platform for managing B2B payments to help Mastercard’s commercial customers.

The post Mastercard and African Development Bank Group to Provide Digital Identities appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The firm announced the private valuation in a Wednesday (May 15) blog post as it revealed the completion of a $30 million seed round. The company said the funding will help it challenge Sam Altman’s Worldcoin and accelerate hiring and product development ahead of a “public testnet launch” in the second half of the year.

“The world needs a truly self-sovereign identity framework that is built on first principles of inclusivity, privacy and decentralization,” Humanity Protocol founder Terence Kwok said in the post. “Proof-of-personhood is a powerful concept, but the solutions that exist today haven’t seen adoption because onboarding is invasive and high friction.”

“Humanity Protocol fixes this,” he added in the post. “We’re creating a decentralized identity protocol that solves verifiable uniqueness and humanity in a way that protects user privacy and self-ownership of data.”

The company’s proof of humanity (PoH) consensus mechanism makes sure each user’s identity within a decentralized system is unique, thus maintaining the integrity of both online and offline environments by reducing the threat of identity fraud and a form of cyberattack known as “Sybil attacks,” according to the post.

PoH lets users carry out a variety of transactions like “asserting their ownership of real-world assets, accessing restricted services, or proving their education and employment history” without needing to turn over personal information to third parties, the post said.

“The whole concept of identity is starting to become more important,” Kwok told Bloomberg Wednesday. “We look at artificial intelligence. We look at all the deepfake videos that are coming on.”

PYMNTS examined the way criminals have used AI and “twisted it in the service of identity fraud,” in an interview with Prove Identity CEO Rodger Desai posted Wednesday.

“Someone sent me a website where I put in a two-second clip of my voice … and it had me singing songs,” Desai said. “The technology’s becoming democratized quickly, and it’s pretty cheap.”

Deepfakes represent a growing threat to businesses, he added, noting the phone needs to be the foundation of identity verification because it is in many cases the device used to carry out fraud. A jump in business identity fraud is evidence of the need for a new strategy for authenticating the person sending invoices, phoning in and even texting.

The post Digital ID Startup Humanity Protocol Valued at $1 Billion appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

An ongoing pilot program in New South Wales (NSW) in Australia is paving the way for over 18,000 children to receive their digital birth certificates ahead of a broader nationwide implementation.

According to NSW Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages’ Theresa Fairman, “The NSW Government has enshrined its equal legal status to the paper document, making it easier and more attractive for businesses and other government agencies to come on board and start accepting the digital birth certificate as part of a future rollout.”

Additionally, acting minister for customer service and digital government Penny Sharpe emphasized the added security benefits of offering birth certificates in digital form, particularly for individuals residing in disaster-prone areas.

“This will be incredibly valuable in times of disaster, giving people one less thing to worry about if their physical birth certificate is damaged or destroyed,” Sharpe said in the report, highlighting potential future applications, ranging from school enrollments to passport applications, that promise secure and convenient digital solutions for various aspects of life.

But beyond the immediate benefits of convenience lies a broader transformation in digital identity management.

One of the most notable advantages of digital birth certificates is their ability to streamline access to essential services and opportunities. With digital records readily available, individuals can enroll in schools, verify their identities with businesses, and access healthcare services with greater ease. Moreover, digital birth certificates promote financial inclusion, enabling easier access to loans and financial products.

Furthermore, the interoperability of digital birth certificates holds promise for seamless identity verification across borders. When designed to adhere to standardized protocols, digital birth certificates could facilitate cross-border identity verification, streamlining travel for global citizens.

However, alongside these opportunities come challenges. As governments transition from traditional paper-based systems to digital platforms for managing birth certificates, they must navigate complex issues surrounding the protection of personal data and safeguarding individuals’ privacy rights.

Given that birth certificates often contain sensitive information such as full names, dates of birth, and even Social Security numbers, any compromise in data privacy and security could lead to severe consequences, including identity theft and fraud on a large scale.

Therefore, ensuring robust identity verification and cybersecurity measures becomes imperative to keep malicious actors from exploiting vulnerabilities in the system, while maintaining public trust in digital identity systems.

The post Digital Birth Certificates Expand Range of Paperless IDs in Connected Economy appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

But, as the rest of the world goes digital, why haven’t IDs followed?

The answer lies in a mix of infrastructure, regulatory, and interoperability challenges — challenges that are increasingly being challenged themselves by the forward march of digital transformation.

This, as there are now over 20 U.S. states working toward adopting mobile driver’s licenses for their citizens. Already, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and Maryland support mobile IDs on the iPhone’s Apple Wallet, while the TSA is currently running a pilot program for accepting digital IDs, and even touchless biometric access, at some airports.

Utah, California and Iowa have all issued their own form of state-sponsored mobile IDs that run on their own native platforms, versus a third-party digital wallet, and are accepted by the Department of Homeland Security for domestic air travel.

The interest in digital IDs lies in the potential for digitized identity documents to serve as a critical tool in combating 21st century fraud, while providing a more foolproof and secure way of verifying identities across an ever-more digital landscape.

That they can make everyone’s’ lives a little bit easier is both endemic to their use, and an added benefit.

Read more: Digital Identity Becomes New Currency as Companies Turn IDs into Payments Credentials

Security Documents Are Stuck on Paper — Are Digital IDs the Cure?

This past August, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) launched the Accelerate Adoption of Digital Identities on Mobile Devices initiative, meant to address key questions and challenges endemic to government-issued digital IDs, including a lack of standardization and potential privacy risks.

In an era where digital interactions dominate, establishing trust is paramount. Digital identities, through biometric data and multi-factor authentication, fortify the security of transactions. This not only protects users from identity theft but also strengthens the overall trustworthiness of digital payment systems.

As PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster wrote Sept. 18, digital transformation is about the physical world becoming an extension of the digital world, not a bolt-on or a separate channel that is the stutter step to the analog processes that define business today. That’s what makes digital IDs so crucial.

Within the context of payments, digital identities can help play the crucial role of verifying the identity of individuals and enabling trust between peers, reducing fraud and ensuring compliance with financial regulations.

The technology, after all, is there for digital IDs to scale. The adoption piece is what needs to be solved for.

“We never really thought about, what does it mean to identify a person on the internet in a way that is portable … Nothing is really practicable without a strong way to do identity … you have to know who people are, and you have to know who you can trust. All the roads in are around digital identity,” Mike Brock, CEO of TBD, a business from Block, told PYMNTS in November.

See also: Network Tokenization and Digital Identities Are Quietly Transforming Payment Security

Digital IDs Make Sense, But Can They Scale?

Still, for digital IDs to make a dent in the mountain of paper and plastic documents that currently serve as the primary means of governmental identity, they will need to overcome entrenched behavioral preferences and fears about the safety of personally identifiable information (PII).

It’s a situation familiar in the payments landscape, where paper checks and even cash are still widely used despite the benefits and conveniences of digital transactions.

“We still have to have a lockbox for checks, you still have people out there doing things on carbon copy paper and writing it down, and the thing about payments is everyone still wants to do it every way,” Jordan Wagner, vice president and general manager at Torque by Ryder, told PYMNTS in an interview posted in July. “We’re really trying to get away from phone calls and checks, but the reality is that in this space, there are still plenty of people who want to do it the old-fashioned way. The old channels are still very, very prevalent,”

Still, the learnings from each sector — payments and identity — can, in an ideal world, reinforce each other as both seek broader adoption.

“With the world that we live in, digital identities are becoming more used than physical driver’s licenses or physical passports,” ACI Worldwide Global Fraud Prevention Risk Services VP Erika Dietrich told PYMNTS.

The post How Solving for Digital ID Acceptance Could Transform Digital Payments appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

This shift has prompted colleges and universities to invest significantly in automation and advanced mobile systems, not just to upgrade security measures but also to accommodate students’ preference for smartphones as their primary payment method.

This evolution reflects a necessary adjustment from traditional university models towards digital solutions that align with students’ evolving behaviors and preferences.

As detailed in the “The Automated Campus: Enabling the Future of Higher Education,” a collaboration between PYMNTS Intelligence and American Express, the most essential features and functions students value in their college app are payment management; a streamlined, all-in-one app; checking and updating finances; and using the app as a virtual ID card. 

Additionally, more than half of the students surveyed also cited the importance of features like receiving refunds, class check-ins, and access to buildings or doors, underscoring the growing significance of mobile automation in creating a secure and convenient campus experience. 

Virtual student IDs, in particular, are gaining popularity, granting students access to buildings and enabling payments for meals, parking, books, supplies and laundry, effectively eliminating the need for cash or credit cards. 

As further evidence of the growing trend, Drake University in Iowa is set to introduce a virtual student ID program this spring, becoming the first college or university in the state to offer mobile credentials to students, The Times-Delphic, the institution’s student newspaper, reported last month.

The virtual IDs will be compatible with a wide range of Apple iPhone and watch models, along with several Android phone and watch models. Using the school’s Transact eAccounts app, students can add their mobile credentials to a single phone and smartwatch, giving them access to a multitude of campus amenities, spanning doors, printers, dining areas, and even popular spots like Starbucks, the report noted.

“Our students live in an era and a date and time where having information on your phone, having your Apple Pay or credit cards or even plane tickets on your phone is just normal.” Director of Public Safety Scott Law said of the campus-wide program launch. “We realize this is the way of the future, this is where people are going.”

ITS Project Manager Jeff Regan added: “From a functionality perspective, printing physical cards and supporting card printing software and machines is an art that is going away. As we see a higher adoption rate for mobile IDs across campus […] we expect to see an ease and improvement from a user experience perspective […].”

Drake University is not the first U.S. educational institution to implement virtual IDs. Since 2018, Apple Wallet has facilitated contactless student IDs in several universities nationwide including Northern Arizona University, University of Maine and New Mexico State University.

Notably, the University of Alabama, an early participant in the program, exclusively issued mobile student IDs to eligible device users in the fall of 2021, with Android phone owners able to access the digital cards through Google Pay, The Verge reported at the time.

This widespread adoption of automation, virtual student IDs and advanced mobile systems goes to show that the concept of the connected campus is no longer a distant vision but a reality being embraced by colleges and universities across the United States.

And with the higher-education software market projected to hit $169.7 billion by 2030, per PYMNTS Intelligence, campuses are poised to evolve into more interconnected and efficient hubs, optimizing operations, resource utilization and significantly enriching the educational experience for today’s students.

The post Virtual Student IDs Enhance Connected Campus Experience With Added Security, Convenience appeared first on PYMNTS.com.