Your old plastic driver’s license could soon get a digital upgrade. Multiplatform producer Tim McPhillips walks us through four things you should know, including some of the benefits and some of the concerns. Geoff Bennett: Your old plastic driver’s license could soon get a digital upgrade. Digital reporter Tim McPhillips walks us through three things you should know, including some of the benefits and some of the concerns. Tim McPhillips: First, what is a mobile driver’s license? Ian Grossman, president and CEO of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators: It’s essentially what it sounds like: taking your driver’s license and turning it into a digital credential that you can carry on your smartphone, your watch or your tablet. Tim McPhillips: That’s Ian Grossman, president and CEO of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. They are a trade organization that provides DMVs with guidance on best practices as well as software and technology infrastructure. Twenty states and Puerto Rico offer a form of digital driver’s license. Some allow you to add it directly to your mobile wallet, like your credit card. Others have a state-created mobile app that stores your ID Two, what are the benefits? Well, the idea is that when you need to show your ID, you could basically tap your phone on a reader, like at an airport or a doctor’s office, or while getting a speeding ticket. Ian Grossman: You would never give up your phone. Tim McPhillips: And that might help limit the information you share. Take, for example, a liquor store. Ian Grossman: They don’t need to know your name. They don’t need to know your address. Tim McPhillips: And if, like me, you’ve lost your wallet and/or left it in a TSA bin, it’s harder for someone to access your phone than it is to simply pick up your plastic ID. Ian Grossman: What you have time to do is go into any browser anywhere, log into your DMV account online, and say, I’ve lost that device, remove that credential from that phone. Tim McPhillips: But there are concerns around this new technology to show who we are. And that brings us to three: government data collection. Here’s Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union. Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst, American Civil Liberties Union: One problem is that the digital ID standard that many, but not all, states are adopting would actually allow the government to track you. Tim McPhillips: So what does that mean? Well, when you tap your Mobile ID on a reader, your information is sent from point A to point B. That simple transaction involves important decisions. For example, is verification done locally on your phone or on a server? And could a third party, such as a state or federal government, access data about where you used your ID? Stanley and the ACLU have spoken out against that last scenario called server or phone recovery for possible abuse. For AAMVA’s part, Grossman says states that could allow server recovery would not be able to use AAMVA’s digital ID systems. Ian Grossman: We have prohibited the possibility of what we would say calling back the agency. Tim McPhillips: All of this is putting pressure on states not to build systems that call home. But since it is possible to do so with the technology and laws in place today, the responsibility for not flipping the switch falls on our elected officials. But: Jay Stanley: We’ve seen a couple of states that have implemented very good protections in their laws. Tim McPhillips: In March, Utah implemented the nation’s first digital identity bill of rights banning residential telephone architecture. Stanley agrees that states should be proactive in making bans on calling home into law. Jay Stanley: States are sleepwalking to create a version that doesn’t protect privacy, and we’ll be stuck with that as the standard for potentially generations. Tim McPhillips: So far, some state governments on both sides of the aisle have allowed mobile driver’s licenses, but others have rejected them, such as Texas and Minnesota. But Grossman says widespread adoption is on the way. Ian Grossman: But nobody forces anyone to do it. Tim McPhillips: And Stanley argues that that should be codified in law as well. Jay Stanley: You should have the right to continue using your plastic license. Tim McPhillips: His fear? Jay Stanley: But it has real potential that one day we will wake up and we will all be forced to pursue these things. They will become a virtual anklet. Tim McPhillips: For PBS News, I’m Tim McPhillips. Geoff Bennett: And you can find more information about this online, including live election results from the state primary later tonight.
