These days, forgetting your phone at home is more of a heartbreaking fate than forgetting your wallet, and it is simple to see why. Apart from the average person being so attached to their smartphone these days, thanks to apps like Google Wallet, your smartphone can essentially replace a wallet in its entirety.
However, how do you carry around physical documents like student or work IDs, passports, or loyalty cards that might not have a digital equivalent that you can easily store on your phone? Google Wallet is about to answer that question with a brand-new feature.
You’ll Now Be Able To Scan And Save Physical Documents As A Digital Copy In Google Wallet
I think we all probably have text-only documents, cards, or passes of some kind that necessitate us either bringing our wallets along for the ride (even when we don’t want to) or sticking that document into our phone case to keep it safe. For instance, your student ID card might be required multiple times a week and you can never forget to bring it along with you, which I could easily see getting annoying.
Now, Google Wallet will make it easy to scan and save “Everything Else” that doesn’t fall into any of its pre-established “Add to Wallet” categories. Basically, you’ll be able to use your phone’s camera to capture an image of the document in question and Google Wallet will take care of the rest, adding it to the other passes as a newly-created digital copy.
And if you’re concerned about sharing your personal documents which might contain sensitive info with Google, the company assures you that all processing of the image is done on your device and not a single byte of data is sent to its servers.
It’ll be able to automatically identify and categorize the document type, whether it is a library card, driver’s license, business card, passport, and so on. That’s pretty useful and will make it possible for you to very happily leave your wallet at home.
It Will Allow For The Storage Of Both Normal And Private Documents
This new feature will allow you to save documents as either “Normal” or “Private” documents. Normal documents that you don’t mind other people seeing, like business cards, won’t need you to enter your biometrics before adding or accessing them. However, private documents like any government-issued ID will require authentication.
You’ll be able to select the category the document falls under if the automatic detection doesn’t do a great job, and if you don’t see an appropriate match, “Other” will do the job and let you fill the info in manually. Android Authority has provided some images showing the interface of the new feature.
This Feature Is Rolling Out To Google Pixel Devices Already
As of right now, it seems that the feature is already rolling out. However, according to 9to5Google, it seems like Google Pixel smartphones are the sole beneficiaries at the moment. Samsung Galaxy phones don’t have this feature yet, but we’re sure they’ll eventually get it, and not too long from now.
