The Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency is developing a digital driving licence for smartphones.
The Agency’s Chief Executive, Oliver Morley, tweeted a photo last month of a prototype on Apple’s iPhone Wallet app and said it would be an add-on to the current plastic card driving licence not a replacement.
The Wallet app can already be used to store credit cards, cinema tickets, boarding passes and so on. A fingerprint and passcode are required to make the payments secure.
Quoted by the BBC news website, CCS Insight analyst Ben Wood said:“Security has taken a significant step forward to support digital payments on phones, so the framework is in place for other secure applications, such as a digital driving licence. There are not many people in the UK that do not carry a smartphone with them every day, so it is a logical next step.”
According to the Driving Instructors’ Association, going digital could mean that licences could be delivered instantly and could help to reduce identity fraud. On the other hand, a digital alternative depends on the smartphone not running out of battery power at the wrong moment.
