Google Wallet May Soon Sync Private Passes Between Devices

Google Wallet May Soon Sync Sensitive IDs and Cards Across Devices

Google Wallet is reportedly developing a feature that would allow users to synchronize private passes – including government-issued identification and health insurance cards – across multiple devices, a change that would significantly streamline access to important digital documents.

Currently, these “private passes” are restricted to a single device as a security measure. However, code discovered within the latest version of Google Play services (version 25.45.33) reveals the presence of flags suggesting the introduction of both manual transfer and automatic synchronization capabilities. These flags, identified as PrivatePassSync__enable_generic_private_pass_sync, PrivatePassSync__enable_pass_migration, and PrivatePassSync__enabled, indicate Google is actively working on this functionality.

While boarding passes and gift cards already sync across devices when logging into Google Wallet, private passes require manual re-entry when switching phones. This update aims to eliminate that inconvenience, offering users the option to migrate passes individually or enable automatic syncing to all devices linked to their Google account. The ability to easily access digital identification is becoming increasingly important as states move towards [digital driver’s licenses](https://www.usa.gov/state-digital-ids), for example.

The development team has not yet publicly announced a release date for this feature, and it remains unclear how long testing will take before it becomes available to the public. Google has not commented on the matter, but the discovery suggests the company is prioritizing enhanced convenience for users while maintaining existing security protocols like fingerprint or PIN verification for accessing sensitive information.

It is expected that further testing and refinement will occur before the feature is rolled out to Google Wallet users.

Joe Maring / Android Authority

TL;DR

• Google Wallet’s “private passes” — government IDs, health insurance cards, et cetera — don’t currently sync between devices.
• Code found in Google Play services indicates that may be changing.
• It’s unclear when private pass syncing may be released.

Google Wallet supports a document type Google calls generic private passes. As opposed to other pass types — store loyalty cards or concert tickets, for example — private passes come with extra security features meant to help keep critical information attached to documents like government IDs or health insurance cards private. One of those security features is that private passes can only exist on a single device at one time, but it looks like that could be changing.

Experimenting with the latest version of Google Play services, we spotted code that indicates Google Wallet might soon incorporate features that will allow users to transfer private passes between devices, or even sync them between multiple concurrent devices.

A few flags found in code for version 25.45.33 of Google Play services point to this in-progress private pass sharing functionality:

Code

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PrivatePassSync__enable_generic_private_pass_sync

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PrivatePassSync__enable_pass_migration

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PrivatePassSync__enabled

As of now, signing into Google Wallet on a new device will sync some passes, such as boarding passes and store gift cards. Private passes don’t automatically populate on new devices, meaning that if you were using Wallet to store an insurance card or a driver’s license and get a new phone, you have to manually add those documents to Wallet again to use them on the new device.

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Once this change takes effect, it looks like you’ll have the choice to manually move private passes from one device to another, or to have Wallet automatically sync your private passes to Wallet on any device you’re signed into. Presumably, other security features (like having to scan your fingerprint or enter your PIN to view private pass documents) will be unchanged.

We weren’t able to get these private pass sync features working, and we aren’t sure how far into development they are at the moment. It could be a while until we see private pass syncing in Google Wallet in the wild.

⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.

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