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Privacy Digital Security United States

Florida Could Become First State To Offer Digital Driver's Licenses (wesh.com) 55

Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
According to WESH Orlando, Florida residents next year will be able to apply for new mobile driver's licenses that can be easily accessed on a smartphone, tablet, or other device. They will be valid as a traditional license. From the report: The service will be provided by the company Thales, which designs and builds electrical systems and provides services for the aerospace, defense, transportation and security markets. "The State of Florida will be the first state in the United States to provide mobile Driver Licenses with leading-edge security mechanisms, fully compliant with rigorous national and international standards.," a statement from Thales said.

According to Thales, a digital license will work the same way as a traditional one. People would open the app and present it to verify your age, check in at TSA or interact with law enforcement. As of now, though, Thales states on their website, "It will be up to each state and local law enforcement agency to determine what procedure and methods work best within their existing protocol." It's unclear exactly when Florida will begin offering the mobile licenses.
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Florida Could Become First State To Offer Digital Driver's Licenses More

Florida Could Become First State To Offer Digital Driver's Licenses

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  • Given that he whores off our privacy and data to basically thieves.

    OK, I'd still not take it, even for money. Rights don't have a price.

  • Do we really want this? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bjwest ( 14070 ) on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @08:48PM (#60608578)
    You get pulled over for a traffic violation and you now have to unlock your phone and hand it to the officer. Not something I'd care to do. If this ever gets to the mandatory stage in my state, I'll buy a cheap handset just to keep my drivers license on. No SIM card, no access to my texts, call history, files, contacts or anything.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by p51d007 ( 656414 )
      My thought exactly! Unless you can tag it as a "lock wallpaper" or something similar that doesn't unlock your phone.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dohzer ( 867770 )

      What's the bet the licence app is 'always on', recording audio and tracking location and other meta-data.

    • I already have the choice to make my credit cards, transit passes, gift cards, automobile insurance, loyalty/membership cards, boarding passes, emergency medical information, and who knows what else available to view without needing to unlock my iPhone first (though actually using any of those to pay would require more, of course). A driver’s license arguably has less sensitive information on it than a number of those other items. So long as it remains a choice, as those others are, and is integrated

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Cylix ( 55374 )

      You already handed over your phone by virtue of having their application....

      The physical version is a moot point.

    • If this ever gets to the mandatory stage in my state, I'll buy a cheap handset just to keep my drivers license on.

      You believe at some point it would be mandatory that you must own a smartphone to store your license? Well, that's certainly not happening in Florida - it's not even mandatory here that your vehicle be completely functional (seriously, we don't have vehicle inspections).

    • Maybe it can be in a mode where it doesn't unlock the phone fully.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by GLowder ( 622780 )
      Actually you don't. We've had digital drivers licenses in Louisiana for more than a year. https://lawallet.com/ [lawallet.com] You just unlock the license, and the officer can use his phone to scan a changing QR that checks against the database to give him all your info. No handing over of the phone needed.

      • The fact that you have to unlock your phone to use the digital ID to prove your identity while being detained by the police is a deal-breaker even if the app doesn't technically require you to hand over the phone. What guarantee do you have that they won't suddenly seize the phone after you've unlocked it? The safe thing to do is to leave all your devices locked and present a separate, physical ID card.

        Anyway, what are you going to do if your phone dies or this app malfunctions while you're driving, or othe

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by GLowder ( 622780 )
          Very true. The law in Louisiana reads such that Highway patrol has to be able to accept it. I think though this is to give it some validity.

          However, I think it's mostly intended to be helpful in verifying who you are to someone else.

          I.E. I have the option to turn on/off items which are available to whomever scans the QR code: My Portrait, License Status (valid vs not), Age, Name, License Number.

          So imagine you're a female entering a club with a bouncer at the door. You can have it show him your fa

    • Why should you need to do that? Granted, you probably will because you have to now, but even today there is no reason you should have to have your license handy to show a cop. Why? Because it's already digitized! Give a cop your name and they can go their car and pull up your license (if they don't have a handheld something). There is no need for you to hand them one today, there would be no need to hand them one if your copy was digital too.
      • Would still need to show the license to the cop, so the cop know it is you that you are talking about.
        I could always give them someone else name with a similar look.
    • when I've been pulled over. Way, way too many trigger happy cops and somehow phones always look like firearms. And if the app crashes you know I'm going to jail (if I'm lucky).

    • Re:Do we really want this? (Score:4, Informative)

      by swillden ( 191260 ) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Thursday October 15, 2020 @11:50AM (#60610502) Journal

      You get pulled over for a traffic violation and you now have to unlock your phone and hand it to the officer. Not something I'd care to do. If this ever gets to the mandatory stage in my state, I'll buy a cheap handset just to keep my drivers license on. No SIM card, no access to my texts, call history, files, contacts or anything.

      So... I have no idea what Florida is planning, but a mobile DL, implemented properly, should absolutely not work like this. In particular you should never hand your phone over to the officer. Also, I'll note that Colorado and Louisiana already have (bad, non-ISO) mDLs, so Florida is not the first.

      To provide a little context to what follows: I'm the tech lead and manager of the team that is building mobile DL (and other identity credential support) for Android, and I'm also a member of the ISO 18013-5 committee that is defining the international standard for mDL and a member of the ISO 23220 committee which is defining more generalized mobile identity credentials (based largely on the 18013-5 work). I'm also considering joining the ISO committee working on mobile passports, though these committees are a lot of work and require a lot of travel and three may be too much, so I'm hesitating.

      So, the way that 18013-5 mDLs work is:

      1. You begin a "device engagement" with the officer's device either via QR (your phone displays the QR code and the officer's devices' camera captures it) or NFC tap (tap your phone to the back of the officer's phone -- note that this is awkward in practice, I think NFC engagement will primarily be used for presentation to a device on a pedestal, e.g. TSA security in the airport).
      2. The QR/NFC does not transfer any data about you. It transfers an ephemeral public key and some information about what communications channel your device would like to use. The options are NFC (only if NFC was used to begin the engagement), WifiAware or Bluetooth.
      3. The officer's device (called the "verifier" in the standard) generates its own ephemeral public key, performs ECDH to derive a session key, then sends an encrypted, authenticated request via the wireless channel indicated by your device. Note that the session encryption is layered on top of transport-layer security provided by Wifi or Bluetooth. The verifier may also sign the request with a private key, to identify and authenticate itself as official. I suspect that this will be rare in practice.
      4. Your device receives the verifier public key, computes the session key and decrypts and verifies the request, validating the signature, if any (using its store of authorized public keys to know if the verifier is official). It then looks at the data that was requested. It may be that some data elements on your DL are pre-approved (by you) and others require you to approve. If necessary, the mDL app will prompt you to indicate whether you approve the data release. It should allow you to select which data elements to release. In the case of a police officer, you'll probably want to provide everything. In the case of a bar, which only needs age verification, you won't.
      5. Your device provides the requested and approved data element values to the verifier via the RF channel, encrypted and authenticated, of course. It also sends a "Mobile Security Object" (MSO) which is a list of randomized hashes of the data element values, signed by the issuer. The per-data element random seeds used in the hashing are provided with the requested/approved data elements, non-requested or non-approved data element seeds are not provided, so the verifier can't learn anything about the non-requested/non-approved data elements from your ID from the corresponding MSO hashes.
      6. The verifier receives all of the above, checks the issuer signature on the MSO, hashes the received data elements and seeds, checks the resulting hashes against the MSO and if all is good displays the resulting data to the officer

      • Oh, I also want to add that in the course of doing this work I've met with a lot of government officials, and was interested to hear -- repeatedly and with absolute consistency -- from police that they do not want to touch your phone. Of course, I was talking to higher-ups who think more about liability than the officer on the street does, but police chiefs pretty unanimously do not want officer fumble-fingers to touch your thousand-dollar smartphone. Which makes a lot of sense, actually.

  • I would love to have this as an option. This shouldn't eliminate the physical card, but be allowed to be used instead. This would mean I wouldn't need to worry about grabbing my wallet when running out to pick up or drop off the kids, and I've had several times when I needed ID when I didn't have it on my (in Florida at Disney World, in fact).

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by CaptQuark ( 2706165 )
      Correct

      Louisiana in July [2018] became the first state to make digital licenses available to anyone who wants them, and at least 14 other states either have developed a program, run a pilot or are studying the possibility, according to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. https://www.governing.com/topi... [governing.com]

      ---

  • Why have anything at all? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by aberglas ( 991072 ) on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @09:56PM (#60608698)

    The police already have a database of all cars and licenses. They have your photo etc. All you need to do is tell them your name.

    • But this will encourage you to unlock your phone for them before they ask you to step out of the car.

      • But this will encourage you to unlock your phone for them before they ask you to step out of the car.

        It won't, actually, if it's done right [slashdot.org].

        • That is interesting, and I hope your mDL standard is widely adopted, but I fully expect it won't be adopted by many (probably most) agencies for the reason I mentioned above. What is in it for them if they just need more equipment/software/training and gain no investigative benefit for themselves?

          It's entirely possible those police chiefs don't want their officers handling Joe Businessman's shiny new Galaxy Fold, but if you are getting pulled over for driving while black, and maybe your phone already has a

          • The standard committee was convened by AAMVA (American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators), which is highly influential to all of the DMVs. Also, I've spoken with key decisionmakers in several states who very much like the standard. Keep in mind that police don't actually have much of a say, though many DMVs do solicit their input as a matter of courtesy. I think it will be adopted in the US, Canada, Australia, Europe and Japan. I doubt China will adopt it. No idea about the rest of the world.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by izzix ( 1193865 )
      Brazil has the option of digital driver's License in all states since February 2018.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      The police already have a database of all cars and licenses. They have your photo etc. All you need to do is tell them your name.

      Exactly. The little card you carry in your wallet isn't a license. It's just a representation. It's sufficient, but not necessary way to prove you have a license to drive.

      After all, if you give your license to someone else, does it mean they can drive? Does it confer the license to drive to that other person if they are in possession of that card?

      If you go driving around in your s

      • Yes, even though they can look up your license just as quickly as you can get it out of your wallet, they will hand you a big fat ticket for not having it handy.

    • It's useful for when the system is down or unreachable for some reason. Also, the "something you have" aspect reinforces that you're the same person. Otherwise you could claim to be someone who looks like you, with a license you show that you have something that asserts it. It can do a key exchange protocol to verify authenticity offline.

    • Logically and rationally, yes. Legally, they'll ticket you for driving without a license. That your name is sufficient for them in every technical way changes nothing. I don't know if it's because lawmakers are lazy, stupid, or if they just don't want to give up the revenue from fines.
    • is one more charge they can tack on as needed to pressure you into a guilty plea. Also helps establish probably cause for searches.
    • "driving is not a right" so they can make any arbitrary rule, but to be fair matching faces to photos could be tricky, so having the card could increase confidence

  • Slow down... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sizzlinkitty ( 1199479 )

    Colorado has had this for a year, Florida is not the first to offer this witchcraft.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Same with South Australia, they have had it for years.

  • Sorry but no! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by anoncoward69 ( 6496862 ) on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @11:10PM (#60608836)
    How is this going to work? Unlock your phone and hand it over the unlocked phone with the licence app open, so they can walk back to their car with it to run your info as they do now with a physical license? Talk about a huge potential invasion of privacy. This is just about the same as saying yeah officer my license is somewhere in my backpack full of personal effects, i'll just let you take my whole backpack back to your car and let you rummage though everything looking for it.

    • If it's digital why would you need to hand it over at all? They have all your details already.

      • There really should be no need of carrying proof of insurance/vehicle registration and getting a ticket written up for just that if you are pulled over and aren't carrying or have out of date insurance cards/registration on hand. You know damn well the state already knows you have insurance (the insurance companies report this to the states so they can suspend/revoke your license if you lapse on coverage) and considering you pay yearly registration to the state, they damn well know whats up with your regis

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      I can only speak for the UK system but we don't have digitla licences (we still have a card), however:

      If you rent a car, you're asked to generate a one-time code on the online digital driving license website.

      That one-time code is only valid for a limited time, and can be plugged into various tools at the hire company that tell them that the driver is authorised to drive X type of vehicles, and any penalty points, restrictions, etc.

      It doesn't give them access in perpetuity. It doesn't need you to hand over

    • How is this going to work?

      This is how it should work [slashdot.org].

  • Alabama started issuing Digital Drivers Licenses in 2015. This is not new and they're not the first. That said, its so obscure, few people know about it. And even though the law says its a valid form of Government Identification, many places refuse to accept it as a form of identification.

  • The thing is internationally a driver's license is nothing more than a license that allows the holder to drive certain kinds of vehicles.
    Over here the only way to prove your identity to authorities is to show your ID card or your passport.

    • See in the US most states wonâ(TM)t allow you to have a âoeState IDâ if you have a drivers license, as the DL is your ID if you can drive. Took me some getting used to to understand a separate ID from a drivers license for other countries. I guess that means you have to carry both on you, assuming you drive daily?

  • Meanwhile (Score:3)

    by ddtmm ( 549094 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @07:41AM (#60609476)
    People continue to bring their check books the the grocery store.
  • The DMVs down here already have issues with them selling Driving License data to 3rd partys.
  • Well Puerto Rico (which is part of the USA) already has a digital license. https://dtop.pr.gov/2020/09/02... [pr.gov]

  • So, a cop won't need a warrant to open your electronic device now?

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