The use of mobile driving licences (“mDLs”) continues to expand globally, with countries such as Australia, South Korea and Paraguay following the path of early adopters like Mexico.
The US is also seeing a spike in uptake, with six states already offering a digital identity credential as a valid mobile driving licence. According to a release from the Secure Technology Alliance, more are coming with 26 other states already in the process of introducing mDLs.
Two years ago, The Last American Vagabond outlined how the push for digital identity programmes is a scam disguised as a human right. In an article published in August 2023, the independent Canadian outlet exposed who is behind the push for digital driving licences in the US and Mexico, which we don’t delve into in our article. You can read The Last American Vagabond’s article HERE.
Mexico
Thales, in cooperation with local partner Cosmocolor, implemented the first Mexican smart card driving licence, in Nuevo León State, in 2007.
The technology has now been expanded to the states of Jalisco, México, Veracruz and Sonora.
As The Last American Vagabond detailed, Thales is one of the driving forces behind the expansion of mobile or digital driving licences.
Australia
In 2017, South Australia became the first state to launch digital licences. In 2021 hackers accessed more than 2,600 mySA GOV accounts after obtaining passwords in a cyber attack on a separate, unrelated website.
Oddly, in January 2024, an academic observed how digital IDs have by and large won popular acceptance in Australian states in no small measure due to having security procedures that assuage most public concerns, according to Biometric Update.
In April 2024, Victoria adopted mDLs as a valid form of digital ID. Last year, the state began rolling out digital driving licences in stages. The trial in Ballarat saw more than 15,000 people access their digital licence since it began in July 2023. The state government called the trial “successful” despite a rough start involving email invitations with incorrect surnames being sent to 57,000 Ballarat residents, prompting security concerns.
South Australia and Victoria were not the only states in Australia to have experienced privacy and security issues.
In 2020, Queensland passed a law to distribute digital driving licences from Thales and in May 2022, the state of Queensland piloted a mDL app in the city of Townsville with plans to roll it out across the entire state in 2023.
While Queensland was launching its pilot, the New South Wales’ mDL was reported to still be vulnerable to attacks and significant design flaws despite warnings from almost three years ago.
In November 2019, the New South Wales government introduced the digital driving licence (“DDL”) as a means to make it easy for people to access a digital version of their driving licence.
In a blog post last year, Australian digital security company Dvlun said security researchers pointed to security flaws in the release of the New South Wales government’s DDL, such as the ability to manipulate data and create fraudulent identities. Despite the warning, Dvlun says there was no formal response from the government and its own analysis of the app on iOS showed the possibility of generating fraudulent DDLs without needing modifications or repackaging of the app itself.
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