I know from having worked in retail at various points of my life that a picture of your ID isn’t sufficient for purchasing alcohol or tobacco products (many places will card you if you appear younger than 40). I’m not sure how old you are (or how old you look), but that’s something to consider, if it’s relevant to you.
My state allow electronic hunting and fishing licenses but that’s about it.
Are you talking about for a credit card or the ID?
My previous phone (Samsung Galaxy S7 I think) could replicate the magstripe and trick nearly every credit card terminal into thinking a card was swiped. This was before NFC was as popular as it is now and mostly worked fine even with non-NFC terminals.
Every time I’d pull out my phone and start waving it around their terminal just for the cashier to tell me ‘we don’t take that here’ or just not have any idea what I’m doing, it would remind me of the, then current, ad for Samsung Pay.
I often wonder what the cashiers were thinking when I did that. If I was running a cash register at my store back before I had any idea about this technology and someone waved their phone around the terminal and the terminal proceeded as if a card had been swiped, I’m not sure what I would have done.
For a while me using Samsung Pay was very clearly the first time the cashier had seen it done and in many cases they weren’t even aware of it before that.
I recently purchased my first car, and thus had to get car insurance for the first time. The insurance agent assured me that the email I got would serve as proof of insurance until my physical card arrived.
I can’t even remember when I last had a physical insurance card mailed to me by my car insurance. For at least the last decade, it’s just been something to print out from the computer at home and keep in the glovebox.
I’m a slim wallet aficionado. I have reached the point where I could probably operate for weeks at a time with no cards at all, and just a phone. In reality I carry some folding money, my divers license and a credit card.
Apps on the phone cover health insurance, driver’s license, car registration, credit card, pharmacy discount, and a loyalty card app stores all the loyalty cards that have bar codes.
The mix of legality and technology is interesting.
Drivers license is the big one as it provides personal identification for lots of purposes. At least in principle. The sate has an app that acts as a one stop shop for state provided and controlled information. By car divers license and boat operators license are in it. This app will also validate someone else’s license. If someone shows me their license on their phone, I can scan it, and my phone will contact the database to validate a one time code displayed on the license. That code is good for some tens of seconds only. So it isn’t possible to use a screen capture of a license.
Which is all great, but the post office (a national body, not a state body) won’t accept it, and if I need to pick up a package, I need the physical license. But if I am pulled over by the police, or need to identify myself in most other places, the digital version works fine. Other federal bodies accept it, just post office doesn’t.
Loyalty cards have worked by the app doing some sort of a deal with the many companies offering loyalty cards, and it just displays the needed bar code. This mostly works fine.
Pharmacy membership discount however decided that they were seeing people presenting other people’s membership. Membership is paid, so there is incentive. They have an app.
Credit cards work fine through the NFC payment system. I have an iPhone so Apple Pay. Same for health insurance claims.
I have one membership card (for a local new music association) that gets me a discounted entry to gigs. I need to carry that.
I’ll see your skinny wallet, and raise you a wallet phone case. Mine is thick enough for 3 cards (ID, health insurance, credit card), and is still wireless charging compatible.
If a card relies on a barcode, the phone version will (usually) work - usually loyalty cards and such. Ditto for QR code squares.
I still run into cashiers who are surprised when I use the credit card NFC from my Apple Watch. In this age of Covid, at least in places where people aren’t busy chugging horse dewormer, almost everyone uses no-touch cashless payments instad of actual money.
The most important part with a driver’s license as mentioned by others, is that it has security measures that make it very difficult to fake - it’s plastic, the photo is sealed in (rumr has it if you try to pry open the plastic the photo turns black) and it’s obvious if a replacement photo has been installed. There are holographic security features (My passport even has my photo in a hologram on the main page). None of these show in a “picture” on a phone. If your state includes a QR code as part of the license, that would work but would require the policeman to take your phone into his vehicle to scan with a computer, assuming he has the accessories to scan it.
As for medical - I usually only go to a few specific medical offices, and am a repeat customer. I assume they would not care, but my card is not terribly secure AFAIK. Plus, in Canada, unless you are from outside the country, there is no need to impersonate someone else to get medical treatment so likely less onus on the office to be sure of identity.
Credit cards on my phone or watch are nice, but contactless purchases - at least, here - have an upper limit, usually $100 to $200. Some merchants (i.e. Costco) have higher limits, it seems, but then they probably know who you are. Beyond that, you need to insert the card so it can talk to the embedded chip.
Inspired by this thread, I went through my wallet last night, and pulled out five cards that I don’t need to have in there on a daily basis right now (such as my work-issued Amex card). It’s substantially thinner now. 
In Colorado you don’t hand your phone to the police officer. Instead the officer shows you a QR code to scan, and that tells the app on your phone to transmit your ID and vehicle information to the officer. The app does ask permission before it sends anything, so it’s not going to happen automatically from scanning what you think is a QR code for a restaurant menu.
I’m in Colorado, and I have my ID loaded in the myColorado app, but mostly just as a backup. I’m much more likely to forget my wallet than my phone, especially because the phone is also my car key.
Supposedly some businesses also accept the digital drivers license, but I’ve never had it offered as an option. For those of you who do work in places that sell alcohol, would it be convenient if customers just scanned a QR code by the register, and then their ID appeared right on your register screen? I assume it will be a pain the first few times, but your regulars will figure it out.
Pretty much what I use. I have Apple’s overpriced but very nice version. It is quite a revelation being able to toss the wallet. I have never missed it since I swapped over. I can fit a concert ticket (for the small number of physical tickets I get) in as well. One realises that the majority of cards in a bulging wallet are just a security blanket.
Both. We still swipe credit cards and photo IDs are easy to fake.
It’s not what I would or wouldn’t find convenient, it’s all about what state law allows in my jurisdiction. Honestly, my opinion has zero to do with the process.
I use a rigid card wallet that is essentially a flat aluminium box and you spring the cards out in a fan. It will fit 6 normal cards or 4ish with raised lettering. It was a great discipline to get my daily life down to the right card combination to fit them all in. Never liked fat wallets and this gave me sleek consistency. Perfect.
But! Now we have reached peak wallet. Last week I was able to replace a construction card with a phone version and I fell below the critical number of cards required for them all to snugly hold themselves in place in the holder. This is a watershed - do I slim down again to keep the cards I must have in something even thinner, or do I chuck in a library card as a space-filler?
Decades ago, I was pulled over for… huh, can’t even remember what for, now. Something minor. Anyway, I realized that I didn’t have my wallet with me (which was very out of character for me). The cop asked me if I knew my DL number- and luckily I did. He looked it up on his computer, saw that I was me, and let me go with a warning.
Ever since then I keep photos of all of my identification on my phone and in my email. While I always try to have my ID on me, it’s always good to have a backup.
What happens if someone steals your phone?
How do you insist on a police officer returning your phone if they are not so inclined?
Couldn’t your teen easily copy that from your phone, clandestine like, and go wild with it?
There will certainly be a general trend towards fully electronic ID cards in the near future. Some jurisdictions have already introduced it or are in the process of doing so; essentially, the ID card or driving licence will be stored either on the RFID chip of the phone, or in a dedicated app that generates and displays a QR code which can be scanned for verification (the latter option has the benefit that any other smartphone with a camera can easily be used for verification). COVID-19 has accelerated this trend greatly, since this is exactly how digital vaccination certificates work in many countries.
Meanwhile, for anything that relies on a QR code, you can easily get by with a photo of it and show that instead of a physical document that serves no purposoe other than to display that same code. Or alternatively, you can use a dedicated mobile wallet app that can scan the QR code and store it.
What happens if someone steals your phone?
If you’ve backed up your phone to a cloud account, you can easily get a new one and copy the back-up onto it; voilà, you have your ID cards and licences back. Of course you won’t have them until you get that done, but with physical cards you have the same problem until you get a physical replacement.
How do you insist on a police officer returning your phone if they are not so inclined?
How do you insist on a police officer returning your driving licence after inspection if they are not so inclined?
Couldn’t your teen easily copy that from your phone, clandestine like, and go wild with it?
Then my teen will have an electronic driving licence with a date of birth and picture that doesn’t match the appearance of the actual person.
OP checking in.
Just ordered this one:
Same here. My COVID card is a flimsy piece of paper which won’t last long in a wallet. So, I took a picture.
Also, the pharmacy I go it at is a pretty big chain (Walgreens in Chicago) and they have an app that I have on my phone. That app will show my vaccination record.
All that said, I went to my barber and they told me they would ONLY accept my paper card. Not the photo. Not the app. Only the paper card. Just my barber but apparently this is open to interpretation.