Access key types

Hospitality

Hotel room keys in Apple Wallet help deliver an easy and contactless experience from check-in to check-out, while providing additional privacy and security benefits for guests on top of traditional plastic hotel key cards. Hotel guests at supported locations can tap to unlock with room keys in Apple Wallet on their compatible iPhone devices and Apple Watch Series 4 or later.

The capabilities in Apple Wallet are specifically designed to reduce friction for the customer:

• Pre-arrival provisioning from the hotel’s app, to add a pass to Apple Wallet ahead of a stay

• Check-in pass tiles, to initiate check-ins and room assignments from Apple Wallet

• Post-provisioning key updates, to support extending or modifying current stays

• Multi-room key support for a single pass in Apple Wallet

• Auto-archiving of expired keys in Apple Wallet

Disney MagicMobile passes

Users can add a Disney MagicMobile Pass to Apple Wallet on iPhone or Apple Watch to enter participating Disney theme parks. MagicMobile Passes can be used for entry into the park as well as at other applicable readers throughout the parks.

To add a Disney MagicMobile Pass, in addition to having two-factor authentication enabled on their iCloud account, a user must have tickets or reservations to a participating theme park associated with a valid My Disney Experience account. From the My Disney Experience app on their iPhone, the user can select one or more passes to add to Apple Wallet. If the user has a paired Apple Watch, the selected passes are automatically provisioned onto both the user’s iPhone and their paired Apple Watch. Express Mode is turned on by default for passes added to both iPhone and Apple Watch devices. For ease of use, when Express Mode is turned on, it’s turned on for all MagicMobile passes currently on the device.

Multiple passes can be added to a single device so that users can manage the passes for all members of their party. Users may also choose to use the My Disney Experience app to share passes with other users. In this way, recipients can add the shared passes to their devices’ Apple Wallet.

Corporate badges

Employee badges of supported partners can be added to Apple Wallet on iPhone and Apple Watch, allowing employees around the world to have contactless access to their workplaces. To add a badge, an employee must have multifactor authentication enabled for their account used to sign in to the app provided by their employer.

Employee badge takes advantage of Apple’s access capabilities, allowing users to:

• Automatically add an employee badge to their paired Apple Watch through push provisioning that doesn’t require installing a partner’s app

• Seamlessly access office amenities utilising Express Mode

• Gain access to the workplace even after their iPhone runs out of battery

Student ID cards

In iOS 12 or later, students and staff at participating campuses can add their student ID card to Apple Wallet on supported models of iPhone and Apple Watch to access locations and pay wherever their card is accepted.

A user adds their student ID card to Apple Wallet through an app provided by the card issuer or participating school. The technical process by which this occurs is the same as the one described in Adding credit or debit cards from a card issuer’s app. Additionally, issuing apps must support two-factor authentication on the accounts that guard access to their student IDs. A card may be set up simultaneously on a user’s iPhone and a paired Apple Watch.

Multi-family homes

Tenants and staff of supported partner facilities can use their home key in Apple Wallet to access their building, unit and common areas. The home key can be provisioned from the app provided by the partner. For partners that support frictionless provisioning, property managers can send tenants a link to initiate provisioning using their preferred messaging channel (for example, email or SMS) so that the tenant only needs to click the link to redeem the key. App Clips also provide a secure and seamless experience, making it possible to provision a key without installing a partner’s app. For more information, see the Apple Support article Use App Clips on iPhone.

Multi-family home key can also be used in Express Mode and can be securely shared with friends and family members. For more information, see Key sharing.

Home key

A home key in Apple Wallet can be used with supported NFC-enabled door locks with a simple tap of an iPhone or Apple Watch. For more information about how a user can set up and use a home key, see the Apple Support article Unlock your door with a home key on iPhone.

When a user sets up a home key, all residents in their household also automatically receive the home key. To further share a home key or remove a member of a shared home, the owner of a home can use the Home app to manage invitations and members. When a user chooses to accept an invitation to join a home with a home key, this initiates provisioning of the home key into Apple Wallet on their devices. If a user chooses to leave a home or if the home owner withdraws their access, these actions also remove the home key from Apple Wallet.

Car key

Storing car keys digitally in Apple Wallet is available natively in supported iPhone devices and paired Apple Watch devices. Car keys are represented as passes (created by Apple on behalf of the automaker) in Apple Wallet and support the full Apple Pay card life cycle (iCloud Lost Mode, Remote Wipe, local pass deletion and Erase All Content and Settings). As with standard Apple Pay cards, shared car keys can be deleted from the owner’s iPhone, Apple Watch and in the vehicle’s Human Machine Interface (HMI).

Car keys can be used, for example, to unlock and lock the vehicle, open and close the trunk, turn the alarm on and off, start the engine or set the vehicle into drive mode. The “standard transaction” offers mutual authentication and is mandatory for engine start. Unlock and lock transactions might use the “fast transaction”, when required, for performance reasons.

Keys are created by connecting (or pairing) an iPhone with an owned and supported vehicle. All keys are created inside Secure Element based on elliptic curve (NIST P-256) on-board key generation (ECC-OBKG), and the private keys never leave the Secure Element. Communication between devices and the vehicle uses either NFC or a combination of Bluetooth® LE and Ultra-WideBand (UWB). Key management uses an Apple-to-automaker server API with mutually authenticated TLS. After a key is paired with an iPhone, any Apple Watch paired with that iPhone can also receive a key. When a key is deleted either in the vehicle or on the device, it can’t be restored. Keys on lost or stolen devices can be suspended and resumed but reprovisioning them on a new device requires new pairing or sharing.

Car keys can also be used in Express Mode and can be securely shared with friends and family members. For more information, see Key sharing. For more information on security and privacy of the digital car keys, see Car key security in iOS.

Scooter key

In iOS 17 or later and in certain countries or regions with supported partners, users can get a scooter key provisioned from the partner app directly into Apple Wallet on a supported iPhone and paired Apple Watch for the following purposes:

• Tap to lock or unlock the scooter

• Tap to lock or unlock the scooter’s boot (if available)

A dedicated applet in the Secure Element securely handles cryptographic credentials associated with the scooter key and allows secure transactions with the scooter.

On the back of the pass, users can access additional information about their scooters, such as the last four digits of the vehicle identification number (VIN) and its licence or number plate. Such information may be considered private and can be accessed only when using biometric authentication or the device passcode.

The scooter key can also be used in Express Mode and can be securely shared with friends and family members. For more information, see Key sharing.