Digital driving licences are to be launched within the UK as the federal government appears to be like to make use of expertise to “rework public companies”.
They are going to be accessed on a brand new authorities smartphone app and may very well be accepted as a type of ID when shopping for alcohol, voting, or boarding home flights.
Bodily licences will nonetheless be issued, however ministers consider the voluntary digital possibility will “drag authorities into the 2020s,” in response to The Occasions.
A authorities spokesperson informed BBC Information: “This authorities is dedicated to utilizing expertise to make individuals’s lives simpler and rework public companies.
“Expertise now makes it attainable for digital identities to be safer than bodily ones, however we stay clear that they won’t be made obligatory.”
The digital licences may very well be used at grocery store self checkouts, The Times said, permitting prospects to confirm their very own age with out ready for a member of employees.
The brand new digital licences might be launched later this 12 months, the newspaper reported.
A attainable characteristic might enable customers to cover their deal with in sure conditions, equivalent to in bars or retailers.
There have been greater than 50 million driving licence holders within the UK in 2023, in response to government data.
The digital licences are more likely to be launched as a part of a “pockets” inside a brand new authorities app referred to as Gov.uk.
The pockets is known to be secured in an identical technique to many banking apps, and would solely enable the real proprietor of a licence to entry it.
It’s going to use options discovered on many smartphones, equivalent to biometrics and multifactor authentication, like safety codes.
The federal government is claimed to be contemplating integrating different companies into the app, equivalent to tax funds and advantages claims.
Different types of identification, equivalent to nationwide insurance coverage numbers, may be added – however it’s not thought bodily identification might be changed totally.
The brand new expertise seems to cease in need of being a broad digital ID card – as previously called for by Sir Tony Blair and Lord William Hague.
On the time, the pinnacle of privateness marketing campaign group Large Brother Watch stated such a transfer “could be one of many greatest assaults on privateness ever seen within the UK”.
In 2016, the then-boss of the UK’s Driver and Car Licensing Company (DVLA) stated digital licences were being developed.
Digital licences are already in use in Australia, Denmark, Iceland and Norway, in addition to some US states.
Within the European Union, each member state is required to introduce at the least one type of digital ID by 2026.
