The basis for a remotely readable national ID in the US? States are trialling mobile driver licenses police can ping from a distance.

by LizMcIntyre

The Delaware Division of Motor Vehicles is trialling a mobile driver license that allows “law enforcement officers to ping a driver’s smartphone to request their driver’s license information prior to walking to the vehicle.”
Virginia and Iowa have recently trialed the tech, too.
The tech is provided by IDEMIA, a company that specializes in citizen identification programs, like the Aadhaar program in India:

We are primarily funded by readers. Please subscribe and donate to support us!

“Thanks to our tri-modal (fingerprint, iris and face)
enrollment solutions, we enable governments to
recognize the existence of millions of people. With the
Aadhaar program in India, IDEMIA is proud to have set up a solid foundation for the second largest population in the world.”

Of course, a remotely pingable, smart-phone based driver license could offer conveniences, like the ability to update without standing in line at a DMV. Will this outweigh other concerns?
Could this be a way for the government to slip a national idea into our lives through a back door? If the US government proposed a national ID, citizens would raise Cain. Doing it via a state-by-state convenient phone app might change the equation.
 

Views:

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.