The COVID-19 pandemic has provided momentum for all things digital and remote. For instance, in health care it led to the rapid adoption of telehealth, which had struggled for years to gain widespread acceptance.
In motor vehicle regulation, the pandemic accelerated what has been a gradual transition to serving customers remotely. “The evolution of mobile driver’s licenses and the recognition of being able to do transactions without exchanging a physical document certainly fits within that,” said Ian Grossman, vice president of member services and public affairs for the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA). “Being able to empower customers to have a credential that they can use in a transaction where they’re not passing back and forth a physical document has been further accelerated by the pandemic.”
Arizona rolled out its mobile driver’s license (mDL) app in March 2021. Eric Jorgensen, director of Arizona’s Department of Transportation, is leading his state’s nascent mDL initiative. He wants to make clear, however, that the state has its sights set on something much bigger.
In motor vehicle regulation, the pandemic accelerated what has been a gradual transition to serving customers remotely. “The evolution of mobile driver’s licenses and the recognition of being able to do transactions without exchanging a physical document certainly fits within that,” said Ian Grossman, vice president of member services and public affairs for the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA). “Being able to empower customers to have a credential that they can use in a transaction where they’re not passing back and forth a physical document has been further accelerated by the pandemic.”
Arizona rolled out its mobile driver’s license (mDL) app in March 2021. Eric Jorgensen, director of Arizona’s Department of Transportation, is leading his state’s nascent mDL initiative. He wants to make clear, however, that the state has its sights set on something much bigger.
“I actually hate the term ‘mDL’ because it doesn’t recognize the power of what we’re doing here,” he said. Arizona calls its app AZ Mobile ID. “The whole concept is that we’re providing a way to remotely authenticate a person, to provide a trusted digital identity that doesn’t exist today. Once we provide that, we’re opening doors to enhanced government services. Also, the government can play a key role in facilitating commerce, providing a better citizen experience and providing for the security of that citizen — that goes way beyond what a driver’s license is about.”
“There are a lot of government agency use cases where you would use your driver’s license or state ID to prove that you are who you say you are,” said Russell Castagnaro, director of digital transformation in the Colorado Governor’s Office of Information Technology. “This is all foundational work. We’re going to prove it out with the DMV, and then with taxation, and then spread it out across the other agencies as quickly as possible.”
“The general philosophy is that once we get these into more people’s hands, and they’re trying to use them, the relying parties will recognize the need to invest in the infrastructure to read them,” AAMVA’s Grossman said. “It’s not unlike when chips on credit cards first came out. We all started to get the credit cards, but when you went to the store, they didn’t take them. But it didn’t take that long to move from that to where we are now, which is that your chip can be used pretty much anywhere.”
Another question people have had is how mDLs relate to federal Real ID requirements. Jorgensen says a recently passed Real ID modernization bill made clear that Real IDs could be issued in a mobile format. “There’s still some work that has to be done, and TSA has been actively engaged in trying to develop all the pieces around that,” he said, adding that acceptance at airports would be a key use case for mDLs. “That becomes a great step forward,” he added.
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