US government to accept Apple Pay for 'many' transactions starting in September

Posted:
in General Discussion edited February 2015
Speaking at the White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection on Friday, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook revealed that the U.S. government plans to begin accepting Apple Pay for a number of transactions, starting with admission to U.S. national parks.




Cook's speech was a not-so-thinly veiled critique of competitors such as Google, who make money off of advertising to users and collecting their personal information to allow for more targeted ads. But Cook portrayed Apple as a company that's focused on selling great products, "not on selling your personal data."

"We believe everyone has a right to privacy and security, and that is why I stand before you today," the Apple CEO said.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said Thursday he believes drivers' licenses and passports will become digital and secure in the not-so-distant future.
With that in mind, Cook began to speak about Apple Pay, touting that the iPhone-based e-wallet service was designed with security in mind. The chief executive took Friday's speech as an opportunity to reveal that the U.S. federal government will begin accepting Apple Pay in some cases this year.

"Beginning in September, Apple Pay will be available for many transactions with the federal government," Cook said. "Like, for example, when you pay for admission to your favorite national park."

He also touched on the news announced earlier in the day by the White House, which plans to add Apple Pay support for federal payment cards, including Social Security and veterans benefit debit cards.




Cook suggested that the government is eager to embrace Apple Pay because of its focus on security. He also boasted that more than 2,000 banks have signed on to bring Apple Pay to millions of customers.

"We don't know your credit card number or what you bought or how much you paid," Cook said. "And we don't want to."

Apple Pay relies on a process known as tokenization, which allows for purchases made through a merchant to be authorized without actually sharing information like a credit card number or expiration date. Doing so reduces the risk of credit card and identity theft.

Cook made it clear on Friday that he sees digital wallets going well beyond credit and debit cards in the future.

"We can imagine a day in the not-so-distant future when your wallet becomes a remnant of the past, your passport, your driver's license, and other important documents can be digitally stored in a way that's safe, secure, and easy to access. But only by you," he said. "After all, we shouldn't have to trade our security for the convenience of having all of this information at our fingertips."
«1

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 36
    Thanks Obama.
  • Reply 2 of 36
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    What's really pathetic is how Google and Fandroids were hyping (i.e. "Bullish!tting) GoogleWallet and with years of a head start, accomplished squat.

    Here comes Apple once again showing these idiots how it's done, and done right and the Fandroid community once again scurries to the corner of a room and hope no one calls them out on their idiocy.

    ApplePay is a great system, is easy to use, and has rock-solid security and does everything and anything to make sure that no individual information is kept anywhere. That's giving Google the big middle-finger.

    Way to go Tim!
  • Reply 3 of 36
    xixoxixo Posts: 450member
    It will be interesting to see if they let you use ApplePay at the IRS.

    Currently, a skeezy company, [B]Official Payments,[/B] has a monopoly on CC/debit card payments to the IRS.

    They charge a percentage for this service.

    If we're able to use ApplePay instead this will be .... interesting.

    Official Payments came into being back when taking payments over the Internet was difficult and expensive.

    They inked a number of exclusive agreements with state and local governments (as well as some federal agencies) to accept online payments. These agreements persist to this day.

    States whose constitutions etc don't allow "user fees" to be charged by state agencies for online payment processing (drivers license, business license, etc) bypass this by letting OPAY collect on their behalf.

    I hope Apple kicks their asses.
  • Reply 4 of 36
    calicali Posts: 3,494member
    DAAMMN!!!!

    Tim Cook is Steve Jobs with a smile on his face!!!!
  • Reply 5 of 36
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member

    When ApplePay kicks into full overdrive, I'm really interested in hearing how it affects credit-card fraud.  The secure token-based model, TouchID should make the hijacking of credit-card information a thing of the past for the most part.



    This is great news.

  • Reply 6 of 36
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sflocal View Post



    What's really pathetic is how Google and Fandroids were hyping (i.e. "Bullish!tting) GoogleWallet and with years of a head start, accomplished squat.



    Here comes Apple once again showing these idiots how it's done, and done right and the Fandroid community once again scurries to the corner of a room and hope no one calls them out on their idiocy.



    ApplePay is a great system, is easy to use, and has rock-solid security and does everything and anything to make sure that no individual information is kept anywhere. That's giving Google the big middle-finger.



    Way to go Tim!



    As with so much of what Google does they introduced Google Wallet, didn’t promote it, didn’t advertise it, didn’t tie in with banks and retailers. They sort of left it twisting in the wind and went on to the “next big thing” and forgot about it. But they had it first which means nothing these days. 

  • Reply 7 of 36
    I'm sure it's been said before, but sometimes Tim Cook really looks like the character Dr Herb on Two & Half Men :)
  • Reply 8 of 36

    The end of online credit card fraud is nigh.

  • Reply 9 of 36
    CurrenC is the future¡
  • Reply 10 of 36
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

    Tim was right when he said 2015 is the year of ApplePay.


     

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sflocal View Post



    Way to go Tim!

     

    See, the government can move quickly on some things!

     

    Kidding aside, this is huge addition to the critical mass of ApplePay adoption. Kudos to Tim and company. Now I need a phone (or watch) that supports it.

     

    My guess is the government won't be making a similar announcement regarding CurrentC for quite some time, if at all.

  • Reply 11 of 36
    Can anyone verify if there were any members of the NSA in the crowd?
  • Reply 12 of 36
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by formosa View Post

     

    See, the government can move quickly on some things!

     


     

    UPDATE: They meant September 2026

  • Reply 13 of 36
    Great news!!! Well played Tim!! This is so good. I never liked my GSA credit card but now I'm going to show it some love!!!

    THE YEAR OF APPLE PAY!!! YAY!!!!!
  • Reply 14 of 36
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by lkrupp View Post

     



    As with so much of what Google does they introduced Google Wallet, didn’t promote it, didn’t advertise it, didn’t tie in with banks and retailers. They sort of left it twisting in the wind and went on to the “next big thing” and forgot about it. But they had it first which means nothing these days. 




    Google's attitude was that it thought the banks and customers would come crawling to them.  Didn't happen.  In fact, their solution was so sloppy and arrogant everyone else knew better.  What did Google learn from this? Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Shame on them.

     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by formosa View Post

     

     

     

    See, the government can move quickly on some things!

     

    Kidding aside, this is huge addition to the critical mass of ApplePay adoption. Kudos to Tim and company. Now I need a phone (or watch) that supports it.

     

    My guess is the government won't be making a similar announcement regarding CurrentC for quite some time, if at all.




    CurrentC is a joke.  It already got compromised before it even got started.  It has trouble written all over it.  I hope even the government has some sense to stay clear away from it.



    http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/29/technology/security/currentc-app-hacked/

  • Reply 15 of 36
    ralphmouth wrote: »
    The end of online credit card fraud is nigh.

    Not really, because people will still be carrying cards along with having ?Pay as an option on them for some time. We'll have to get to a certain threshold in a particular use case before an iPhone 6 or ?Watch will be the only device people carry with them so that a stolen CC or debit card is not likely to occur. BT I have no doubt it will come and I expect some major advancements announced this year.
  • Reply 16 of 36
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SolipsismY View Post





    Not really, because people will still be carrying cards along with having ?Pay as an option on them for some time. We'll have to get to a certain threshold in a particular use case before an iPhone 6 or ?Watch will be the only device people carry with them so that a stolen CC or debit card is not likely to occur. BT I have no doubt it will come and I expect some major advancements announced this year.



    That's true, and I will still be carrying mine, but for every ApplePay transaction I do, it's one less transaction I did where I had to either hand my card to someone, or transmitted it in some way over an insecure terminal.



    In another few years though, it'll be a different game.  That's where Apple is aiming its sights.

     

  • Reply 17 of 36
    mpantonempantone Posts: 2,033member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismY View Post



    Not really, because people will still be carrying cards along with having ?Pay as an option on them for some time. We'll have to get to a certain threshold in a particular use case before an iPhone 6 or ?Watch will be the only device people carry with them so that a stolen CC or debit card is not likely to occur. BT I have no doubt it will come and I expect some major advancements announced this year.

    Correct. Every single merchant that you can possibly think about using (and some that you might not think about) would have to accept NFC contactless payments, highly unlikely in the next few years.

     

    Also, I am not aware of heavy deployment of ATMs that support NFC. If I recall correctly, Visa and MasterCard's liability shifts for ATMs is next year and that's for EMV; the liability shift for gas station POS terminals is in 2017, so I'm guessing that people will still need to have physical cards for some time. 

  • Reply 18 of 36
    fallenjtfallenjt Posts: 4,053member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismY View Post





    Not really, because people will still be carrying cards along with having ?Pay as an option on them for some time. We'll have to get to a certain threshold in a particular use case before an iPhone 6 or ?Watch will be the only device people carry with them so that a stolen CC or debit card is not likely to occur. BT I have no doubt it will come and I expect some major advancements announced this year.

    Yeah. I don't carry my CC anymore, but my ATM cards since I need to withdraw money sometimes. If ATM allows Apply Pay, I'll be good to drop my physical wallet. On that note, California soon allows digital ID/Driver License too (Assembly Bill 221). What's in your wallet? nothing for mine.

  • Reply 19 of 36
    fallenjtfallenjt Posts: 4,053member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mpantone View Post

     

    Correct. Every single merchant that you can possibly think about using (and some that you might not think about) would have to accept NFC contactless payments, highly unlikely in the next few years.

     

    Also, I am not aware of heavy deployment of ATMs that support NFC. If I recall correctly, Visa and MasterCard's liability shifts for ATMs is next year and that's for EMV; the liability shift for gas station POS terminals is in 2017, so I'm guessing that people will still need to have physical cards for some time. 


    Well, at least many vending machines now accept NFC payments.

Sign In or Register to comment.