Non-rhetorical question: What's the point of this?
For many years it has been possible in many countries for a police officer to enter a vehicle's number plate and get details of the registered owner, including a photo, on the screen of their own device, one which they trust. If I'm driving a friend's car I could tell the police officer my name, the number plate of a vehicle that I am linked to or some other identifier and the officer could then look me up. Why should a driver need anything beyond a good enough memory to recite some kind of identifier?
Someone who can't remember their own name arguably shouldn't be driving.
I'm looking forward to the day when we won't need passports either. (I'm sure my great-grandchildren will find it much more convenient.)
Perhaps the point of this is that it lets you give someone else, not a police officer, temporary read-access to a subset of the data on the server. Is that it perhaps? That could be useful. For example, to a club bouncer I might choose to reveal my photo and the fact that I'm over 18 without giving away my date of birth and my address, which would be shown on my physical driving licence.
Potentially some interesting technical questions about how to stop people from using someone else's licence with the other person's collaboration: an older sibling's licence, for example.
One benefit is ultimately there would be a few million less plastic cards produced. If it successful, perhaps others states / countries rollout something similar. That could be hundreds of millions fewer plastic cards produced.
Admittedly this is unlikely a significant factor in the state governments decision making. Yet itβs a benefit all the same.
That sounds nice but is it really meaningful to cut such a small amount of waste?
Consider all the other various cards which also might be digitized. Gov ID doesn't seem like the place to start, seems like maybe the one that should always have a physical form even if everything else has become digital.
One problem may be that not all roads have cell phone coverage, at least where I live, so a cop pulling you up may have no way to access an online database. It's also possible for the communications or back-end database to fail at any time.
For many years it has been possible in many countries for a police officer to enter a vehicle's number plate and get details of the registered owner, including a photo, on the screen of their own device, one which they trust. If I'm driving a friend's car I could tell the police officer my name, the number plate of a vehicle that I am linked to or some other identifier and the officer could then look me up. Why should a driver need anything beyond a good enough memory to recite some kind of identifier?
Someone who can't remember their own name arguably shouldn't be driving.
I'm looking forward to the day when we won't need passports either. (I'm sure my great-grandchildren will find it much more convenient.)
Perhaps the point of this is that it lets you give someone else, not a police officer, temporary read-access to a subset of the data on the server. Is that it perhaps? That could be useful. For example, to a club bouncer I might choose to reveal my photo and the fact that I'm over 18 without giving away my date of birth and my address, which would be shown on my physical driving licence.
Potentially some interesting technical questions about how to stop people from using someone else's licence with the other person's collaboration: an older sibling's licence, for example.