Last year, Apple debuted Digital ID on iPhone, allowing users to use their US passport as identification in Apple Wallet. Apple’s been rolling out drivers licenses in Wallet slowly over the past few years, but that’s on a state-by-state basis. Digital ID is universal, allowing anyone with a passport to use it.
Of course, you can use it at TSA checkpoints in airports – but Apple had a bigger scope in mind: digital age and identity verification. While not yet confirmed, it’s possible that we could see a first major implementation of this quite soon, in Claude.
If you’ve been following AI news, you likely know that Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models have been disabled for all customers, after the US government added export controls for the models. This came after a jailbreak was reportedly found, so now Fable 5 and Mythos 5 are unavailable to foreign nationals, whether they’re inside or outside the US.
Fable 5 was only released under the guise that it would be safeguarded from potentially dangerous behavior, which is why the jailbreak was considered concerning. Whether or not this should actually be a concern is up for debate.
Regardless, Fable 5 could theoretically return if the company were able to implement identity verification and ensure only US citizens were able to use the model. While Anthropic could go with a traditional ID verification approach, they could go with Apple’s digital ID feature.
ID verification in Claude
It’s not a matter of if, but when. I’m sure many would like to not tie their identity to their AI usage, but unfortunately, that’s where we are – at least for now.
Claude updated its privacy policy a few months ago to include references to identity verification using Persona, though that’s apparently just for accounts with fraudulent behavior – and isn’t necessarily going to apply to every user who needs to verify, per an Anthropic employee.
Apple’s digital ID feature
There’s nothing to suggest that Anthropic will use Apple’s digital ID feature for verification, but there is precedent. Anthropic was one of few companies to use Apple’s baked in age verification API, allowing developers to verify users’ ages without needing to handle it themselves. For that reason, I could see them using Apple’s digital ID feature for nationality verification as well.
There’s obviously a few big flaws with this. For one, anyone without an iPhone would automatically be excluded. You’d also be excluded if you don’t have a passport or don’t live in one of the 14 states (plus Puerto Rico) that support drivers license in Apple Wallet.
However, for a rushed implementation in response to a directive that hopefully won’t last, I think using Apple’s digital ID feature would be great. It keeps your personal information out of the hands of some shady third-party identity verification service. Hopefully, Anthropic heads in this direction.
My favorite Apple accessory recommendations:
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