I was very excited to see this level of innovation, so why am I still carrying a wallet around in 2026?
I’ve already done plenty of wallet compression over the last decade. From a normal fold-over wallet in my back pocket with 8 or 9 cards, cash and even coin slots, to a compact one in a side pocket and now – and for about the last 5 years – one attached to the back of my iPhone.
But several months ago now, I realised that I never really take the cards I’m carrying around out. The wallet gets in the way of using MagSafe chargers I’ve got in the car, and on my desk. Bulks out a phone that is ever-thinner, thanks to Apple’s obsession with disappointing battery life.
So do I need it at all, I had thought? Well, yes. Because of my driving licence. So the wallet has remained, in the way and bulky, since awaiting the reality of the Government’s announcement landing.
Back to what was promised
Like most Government announcements, a closer read of the press release shows quite a few conditionals, promises and hopes, but there are some consistent ‘pledges’ contained within:
- Launch the Gov.uk app
- Driving licence will be piloted in the app ‘later in 2025’
- The documents in Gov Wallet will be equal to their paper counterparts
- All Government documents will be digitised in the app by 2025
- The Gov.UK AI Chat Bot ‘may’ come to the app
- Digital veteran card will launch in 2025
And somewhere along the way, the app got conflated with the digital ID which got pledged and then cancelled, and then brought back – but on a voluntary basis – making things even more confused.
But it’s 2026. So where is it?
The headline “Digital driving licence coming this year” is, like many headlines, quite literal – and so shouldn’t be taken too literally. Because, buried deeper in the story, is the whole truth.
A mobile driver’s licence will be piloted later in 2025
And that was achieved – just. A blog by the Government Digital Service has revealed that the digital driving licence exists, and has been trialled by people within the Government departments – in December 2025. Later 2025, indeed.
But the plans had been progressing regardless: the app has launched, it has formed a ‘menu’ of sorts of the Gov.uk offer and – another promise achieved – the Veteran’s Card has been launched and 15,000 people have even signed up.
A relatively small proportion of the people who could sign up (there’s about 250k eligible for the digital card), but it’s a good number nonetheless. Especially since four fifths of them are over 75 (an audience who, I think, still skew away from digital even if that is far from universal) and it’s come from a standing start.
There’s a lot of work to do: but choices were made
The blog from the Digital Service also suggests that the project is being approached rather sensibly. Creating looks-and-feels, guidelines for layouts and the hard yards of actually making it work.
The obvious question – at least to me – when this was first announced was to ask why the scheme was happening at all. Why not simply use Apple or Google’s existing wallets? Are we repeating the “we know better” of the COVID app era?
But obvious questions often have obvious answers too. The Apple solution for driving licences in particular come with conditions that don’t make sense (like promoting Apple’s wallet exclusively), and – of course – wouldn’t easily support the wide range of credentials the Government issues.
Because everything is due to be in this app/wallet by 2027, from driving licence, to NI card (remember those!) through to DBS certificates.
And, of course, there’s a whole infrastructure needed to verify what the credentials say, and whether it’s valid – because a digital credential, as the GDS team say, can’t be taken at face value like its physical alternative. And that work, thankfully, is all being done.
So I’ll still need the wallet for now
But I think, having looked into what’s causing the “delay”, I’m happy that it’s the right reasons – and the right timeframe (and, actually, not a delay at all) to avoid the plan being an empty promise.
It’s just a shame that the rhetoric that has gone alongside the announcement last year led me – and probably others – to assume this was yet another Government tech project running late. The headline was quite literal – but also misleading, without the detail – and the tech, it seems, even by the reality of the announcement, is running on time.
Is that the whole picture? Who knows, and these things are never simple. I can’t find any progress on legislation to give the digital version equal power to the paper one, for example. If legislation is needed (I don’t know whether it is, but I’d assume it is), it likely isn’t complex, but it’s sure to trigger debates: whether that’s digital exclusion concerns, or simply because it’s a form of national ID. They’ve been controversial since Tony Blair’s time. So I can’t see it being speedy.
So will I be waiting until 2027 to peel that wallet off? It’s hard to tell.
