Are Apple Pay and Google Pay More Secure Than Credit Cards?
Virtual wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay are extremely convenient, but are they safe? How do they protect your information from people that would try to steal it? Here is what you need to know.
How Do Apple Pay and Google Pay Work?
Apple Pay and Google Pay allow you to use your phone to tap-to-pay, much like you would with a credit card. But how do they work under the hood?
When you first add a card to either service, the card number is transmitted to an intermediary called a Token Service Provider(TSP). Token Service Providers take your credit card number, otherwise called your Primary Account Number(PAN), and assign you a second number called a token, or Digital Primary Account Number(DPAN).
Once you’ve been assigned a token, every time you use your phone to pay for something, your phone transmits the token over NFC instead of your actual credit card number. Whoever you’re paying then transmits your token to the TSP, and the TSP is the one that links your token back to your regular account number. That information is then forwarded along to your bank (or other financial institution), and your payment goes through.
This extra layer is there to prevent your real Primary Account Number from being stolen or otherwise abused. A merchant can’t do anything with your token alone—they require the TSP to provide the connection between themselves and your bank.
How Secure are Apple Pay and Google Pay?
Google Pay and Apple Pay are very secure, and as of the time of writing, there has never been a large-scale breach associated with either of them. There are four big features that contribute to this:
- Apple Pay does not store your full credit card number, so even if Apple is compromised and their encryption fails to protect the data (which is unlikely), your card number can’t be stolen.
- Google Pay encrypts all the card data stored on their servers. If the data is ever stolen, it is unlikely that anyone will be able to break the encryption in the foreseeable
