Apple Wallet Magic: How It Seamlessly Scans and Saves Your Card Details

As a user, I’ve always been fascinated by how effortlessly Apple Wallet scans and saves debit/credit card details in just seconds. This curiosity led me to dive deeper into the technology behind it. Here’s what I learned—and how, as a Product Manager, you might address this question in an interview or brainstorming session. 

The different perspective for going through the problem are as : 

Perspective 1 : User Experience:

Apple Wallet uses the camera to scan card information for the reason of convenience and accuracy. The obvious idea behind the process is designed to be seamless, minimizing manual input. Therefore, when a user places the card within a designated frame on the screen, the system automatically detects the card number, expiration date, and other relevant details. 

The interface ensures a smooth and intuitive experience, making onboarding easy for users and quickly.

Perspective 2: Technical Approach

Although it may seem pretty simple and quick, there are a lot of activities going on behind the scenes. Let’s understand what all goes behind: 

1. Optical Character Recognition Technology: Apple Wallet employs Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to read the card details from the image captured by the camera. This advanced image processing techniques ensure that even cards with varied designs, texture and font size are accurately read.
2. Tokenization: After the scanning with the help of OCR, card data is not stored on the phone in its raw form. Instead, it is tokenized, a process where sensitive information (like the card number) is replaced with a unique, randomly generated identifier (token). The tokenized data in systems like Apple Pay is securely stored in a dedicated hardware component on the device which is termed as Secure Element. 

Secure Element : The Secure Element is a tamper-resistant chip embedded within the device (e.g., iPhone, Apple Watch). It operates independently of the device’s main operating system, ensuring that sensitive information remains isolated and secure from potential threats.

1. Integration with Banks and Card Issuers: The Wallet app communicates with the card issuer via secure APIs to verify and activate the card. During this step, the app might prompt the user for additional authentication (e.g., a one-time passcode sent by the bank). The validation of the token and cryptogram between the merchant and payment network is done without ever accessing the original card data.

Perspective 3: Data Security

1. Secure Element Storage: As mentioned above, card data, when once tokenized, is stored in the Secure Element which ensures that the data is isolated from the main operating system and other apps, enhancing security.
2. No Sensitive Data Stored on Servers: Surprisingly, Apple does not store the card number on its servers. Instead, only the token is used during transactions which adds a layer of protection.
3. Encryption and Biometric Verification: All the communication and scanned data captured with the banks are encrypted. Users must authenticate with Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode which is the Authentication layer of the desired user before making any transactions, adding another layer of security.

To conclude, as a Product Manager it is important to consider all the perspectives while collaborating with engineering teams to prioritize other important features like error handling (in case the scan fails), multi-language support for global users and so on.

I hope this article provided you with valuable insights into the seamless technology behind Apple Wallet's card scanning