Ahead of the Made By Google event, where we expect to see the unveiling of major new Pixel 9 phones, Google has released the AI-powered update to Android's Wallet app, announced at Google I/O 2024. This update will make it much easier to store a wider range of digital passports (if you live in the US).
Previously, Google Wallet allowed you to add and store payment cards, transportation cards, loyalty cards, gift cards, and some ID cards. A final additional option allowed you to take photos of anything else you wanted to add with a QR code or barcode. This photo mode has undergone a major overhaul in the latest app update; It is now labeled “Everything Else” and recognizes a much broader range of passport types:
- Business card
- Car insurance
- Driver's license
- Events & Tickets
- health insurance
- ID
- Library card
- Loyalty card
- passport
- Residence permit
- Student ID card
- Tax ID
- Vehicle registration
- Voter ID card
- Other
Simply click the “Add to Wallet” button on the main page, select “Everything Else,” take a photo of it, edit any details that the AI scanned incorrectly, and click “Save.”
Just like your other Wallet additions, these items can be shared with your other Google Wallets. Except for passports that contain sensitive information—such as health or government ID information—they only stay in the wallets you manually add them to.
This Google Wallet update certainly makes it feel a lot more like a real wallet – especially with the addition of driver's licenses – but we wouldn't recommend replacing the real wallet entirely. While a digital version of an ID card can be helpful in emergency situations, we suspect that nine times out of ten, a photo of your driver's license or passport will not suffice.
If you still see the old photo option, it's because you're not a US-based Android user or the update isn't available on your device yet. Keep an eye out for it and the feature should be available in your Wallet app soon.