Plastic Driver’s Licence May Be Next For The Axe
Just eighteen months after the DVLA dumped tax discs in windscreens, it hinted last week that the plastic driver’s licence in now in its sights as a target for change.
The Agency’s chief executive talked on Twitter of an electronic driving licence, stored on a smartphone, as ‘something we are working on.’
Alongside this statement, the tweet included a photo of an iPhone with a driving licence displayed on screen.
Details on offer were scant.
However, the image was displayed in Apple Pay.
This gave a clear indication that the DVLA is prototyping the retention of driving licences alongside bank cards, store cards, tickets, boarding cards and other stuff currently migrating from back pockets and handbags into virtual wallets.
The idea seems to be that our mobiles will then hold handy versions of this commonly accepted form of ID, to be flashed on demand.
Ah, I hear you say, but a false licence would be easily spoofed up in Photoshop and then displayed on the screen of a mobile.
Indeed it would.
So, presumably, as with other stuff in the Apple Wallet, it would work by an exchange of secure, encrypted token data with the issuer’s database to verify that the licence in question was a genuine one.
Competition will become fierce between Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay and yet more contactless payment solutions to come.
They will all look to suck up valuable information about where we go and what exactly we buy.
Recording places where we show this ID would be less intrusive than most data that could be extracted from these wallet Apps.
That may be why reaction thus far to this revelation across the internet has been mostly positive.
