DVLA working on digital licence for smartphones

14 May 2016

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The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has revealed it is working on a digital licence for smartphones.

DVLA chief executive Oliver Morley revealed the plans by posting a photo of a prototype driving licence running on an iPhone on Twitter.

The posted image, showed a licence sitting within the iPhone's Wallet app, ''So here's a little prototype of something we're working on,'' he wrote.

It is not clear whether the DVLA definitely intended to introduce the new licences, or whether it would spell the end of plastic licences for many people.

Apple's Wallet app is already used to store physical credit cards, airline boarding passes and loyalty cards, but the photo ID card had so far refused to make the change.

Trials of digital driving licences had been conducted by the US state of Iowa and New South Wales in Australia. According to De La Rue, which prints many of the world's passports, it was investigating the possibility of paperless passports.

A number of Twitter users responded to Morley's tweet, pointing out an image of the type would be easy to fake. However, according to commentators, it was likely that the digital licence would be connected to the DVLA's database for verification.

Morely added in a follow-up tweet that security was the DVLA's priority, adding that digital driving licences were still in the prototype phase, so there was not yet a timeline for when they might be available to the general public.

He added that digital licences would be available in addition to photocards rather than as a replacement, so non-smartphone-users need not worry over being left empty handed.

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