Google Wallet Testing Stronger Security Measures For Android And Wear OS

Summary

Google Wallet may be testing adding stricter security measures, locking the main screen for ID verification.
The company also seems to be testing requiring users to enter a PIN for every contactless payment on Wear OS watches.
Both changes are not official yet.

Google introduced a major security change to Google Wallet in 2024, requiring you to verify your identity using device unlock before making payments. The security feature triggers if you open Google Wallet a few minutes after unlocking your phone, though Google later added an option to skip verification for transit payments. Now, Google appears to be testing an expansion of this security feature to cover the entire Google Wallet app.

9to5Google reports that Google seems to be testing an even stricter security measure for Google Wallet. Instead of just locking contactless payments after three minutes, the company will lock Wallet’s main screen itself, preventing you (or anyone else) from viewing your added cards and ID proofs. You can view them only after verifying your identity, either by entering your device PIN/password or using biometrics. The change is supposedly going live with Google Wallet v25.18.

In a way, this enhanced security measure in Google Wallet makes sense. With the app now storing more digital IDs than ever before, including driver’s licenses and student IDs, such information should always be secured behind an extra layer of protection.

Ideally, Google Wallet should require a PIN/password or biometric verification when opened for the first time, and then prompt for re-verification if it hasn’t been used for a few minutes.

Google seems to be rolling out a major security change to how contactless payments on Wear OS watches work as well. Last year, a bug caused users to enter a PIN for every tap-to-pay transaction from their watch. This caused quite an uproar as it made using Wear OS watches for contactless payments cumbersome. Google confirmed soon after that this was not an intended change and rolled out a fix.

However, it seems the company is again considering bringing back this behavior. Multiple users on Reddit claim having to enter the PIN for every contactless payment made from their watch. One Redditor contacted Google support and was told that “this is one of the security measures that Google will be taking to protect your transactions and your account privacy.”

There’s always a chance that Google’s support staff is wrong and this is just an old bug that has surfaced again. Or maybe Google is trialing this change to decide if it’s worth rolling out or not.