Several US states including Delaware and California are considering to adopt digital driver’s licenses in the near future. Prototypes will be tested this year and if everything goes well the licenses will be offered to the public beggining with 2016. The virtual driving license will look similar to today’s printed license. It will have the same information which is used to identify the owner: a photo, name, address and date of birth. A mechanism will be implemented to allow the quick reading of all personal information similar to how a normal driving license has a barcode so that a barcode reader could be used to read your information.
Once such a system would be available would you handover your mobile phone to a police officer? A number of serious and yet unresolved concerns in regards to what privacy rights might be threatened are already being discussed. Critics claim that there will be no way to have digital driver licenses and also keep our rights to be free “from unreasonable searches and seizures of one’s phone and its contents during traffic stops.”
