Big Tech companies love to sell convenience while hiding what they're really building.
Apple just made a move that has conservatives who remember COVID mandates deeply concerned.
And Apple quietly rolled out one scary change that opens the door to government tyranny.
Apple buried Digital ID launch while connecting Americans to government tracking
Apple didn't hold a flashy press conference when it launched Digital ID in November 2025.
The company quietly flipped the switch at more than 250 Transportation Security Administration checkpoints across the country.¹
No fanfare. No Tim Cook on stage. Just technology that connects your identity to government-verified tracking systems.²
The pitch sounds harmless enough – store your passport data on your iPhone or Apple Watch and breeze through airport security with a tap.
Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck saw right through it.
"Digital ID is the first thing. Then it includes your medical records. It includes all your health — everything," Beck explained on his program. "It will give you access to the hospitals or not access to the hospitals. It will allow you to buy things or not buy things."³
Setting up Apple's Digital ID requires scanning your physical passport, letting your device read the embedded chip, taking a selfie, and completing facial recognition movements.⁴
TSA claims the biometric data gets deleted after verification.⁵
More than 80 organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union warned about "phone home" functionality that lets governments track every single use.⁶
Beck watched COVID tyranny unfold in real-time. He's not falling for Apple's privacy promises.
"It'll allow you to access online or not access online. It is control of absolutely everything. And that's in the design, and they talk about it openly," Beck warned.⁷
Vaccine passports proved governments will use digital systems as weapons
Remember 2021?
New York launched its Excelsior Pass requiring proof of vaccination before you could eat at a restaurant or go to a gym.⁸
Canadian provinces locked unvaccinated citizens out of society with digital certificates.⁹
Israel made booster shots mandatory for its vaccine passport system – the first country to condition basic freedom on repeated injections.¹⁰
Privacy International warned back then that "leveraging essential public health work on vaccination to achieve the goal of taking the biometrics of people and rolling out digital identities is unacceptable."¹¹
That infrastructure never went away – it rebranded as "digital ID."
While Apple swears it can't see when or where you use Digital ID, civil liberties experts call that Orwellian.
"Creating a system through which the government can track us any time we use our driver's license is an Orwellian nightmare," said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology project.¹²
The Electronic Frontier Foundation was even more direct – digital ID systems create data tracking that "far surpasses the minor danger of a bar bouncer collecting, storing, and using your name and address."¹³
Co-host Stu Burguiere admitted the convenience factor sounds appealing.
Beck didn't let that slide.
"I have to tell you, when you start putting everything, all records, all passports — it is your one universal key, and it's tied directly online, where it's tracking everything, everywhere you go, every dollar you spend," he fired back. "This is just a very bad idea."¹⁴
Beck connected dots to Biblical prophecy most analysts ignore
Beck said what technology reporters won't touch.
"There's a story … it's called the book of Revelation. I mean, how much clearer do you have to be, where you can't go anywhere, you can't buy anything, unless you have the mark," Beck stated. "I'm not saying Apple is coming up with the mark of the beast, but this is the technology that sure kind of fits it."¹⁵
Apple's already planning the next phase.
The company announced Digital ID will expand beyond airports for age verification at businesses and online platforms.¹⁶
That means bars. Websites. Social media. Healthcare portals. Banking apps.
Everywhere you need to prove you are who you say you are.
Privacy advocates see where this ends – mandatory digital identity required for participating in society.
One study of national digital ID systems found governments exploit "ambiguity latent in the 'digital ID' concept" to "continuously expand the legal remit of their digital ID databases beyond identification to encompass any purposes marked as a state need."¹⁷
Once they build the system, they'll use it for whatever they want.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation warned that "temporary measures meant for a purpose as seemingly harmless as reviving tourism could become normalized as the blockchain-based identity databases are by design permanent and are difficult to disassemble once the crisis has passed."¹⁸
Americans who couldn't work or eat at restaurants without vaccine passports know how fast "voluntary" becomes mandatory.
Beck's recognizing the pattern from what already happened.
The infrastructure for total control is being assembled right now, one "convenient" app update at a time.
And Apple's counting on Americans to sleepwalk into it because scanning your phone is easier than pulling out your wallet.
¹ Apple, "Apple introduces Digital ID, a new way to create and present an ID in Apple Wallet," Apple Newsroom, November 12, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ BlazeTV Staff, "Glenn Beck sounds the alarm on Apple's digital ID: 'Control of absolutely everything'," The Blaze, December 30, 2025.
⁴ Apple Support, "Use your Digital ID in Apple Wallet," Apple.com, 2025.
⁵ Transportation Security Administration, "Digital Identity and Facial Comparison Technology," TSA.gov, 2025.
⁶ American Civil Liberties Union, "Digital Identity Leaders and Privacy Experts Sound the Alarm on Invasive ID Systems," ACLU.org, June 2, 2025.
⁷ BlazeTV Staff, "Glenn Beck sounds the alarm on Apple's digital ID: 'Control of absolutely everything'," The Blaze, December 30, 2025.
⁸ Wikipedia, "Vaccine passports during the COVID-19 pandemic," Wikipedia.org, October 9, 2025.
⁹ Ibid.
¹⁰ Ibid.
¹¹ Privacy International, "The looming disaster of immunity passports and digital identity," PrivacyInternational.org, 2020.
¹² American Civil Liberties Union, "Digital Identity Leaders and Privacy Experts Sound the Alarm on Invasive ID Systems," ACLU.org, June 2, 2025.
¹³ Electronic Frontier Foundation, "Digital ID Isn't for Everybody, and That's Okay," EFF.org, October 30, 2025.
¹⁴ BlazeTV Staff, "Glenn Beck sounds the alarm on Apple's digital ID: 'Control of absolutely everything'," The Blaze, December 30, 2025.
¹⁵ Ibid.
¹⁶ Apple, "Apple introduces Digital ID, a new way to create and present an ID in Apple Wallet," Apple Newsroom, November 12, 2025.
¹⁷ Open Government Partnership, "Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Digital ID Systems," OpenGovPartnership.org, March 26, 2024.
¹⁸ Electronic Frontier Foundation, "Digital ID Isn't for Everybody, and That's Okay," EFF.org, October 30, 2025.
