Soon, more Californians will be able to have their driver’s license or state ID cards in their digital wallets, as well as their pocket or purse.
For state residents, this means the convenience of being able to show driver’s licenses and state IDs in their Apple Wallet and Google Wallet at select online retail businesses and TSA airport security checkpoints, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced this week.
“We’re trying to scale up identities so that they’re safe, privacy preserving and make sure that people can put it in the same device that almost none of us leave our home without,” said Steve Gordon, director of the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
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The move to go digital is part of the DMV’s mobile driver’s license pilot program, which launched in April 2023, allowing participants to add their driver’s license or state-issued ID to their mobile device using the California DMV Wallet app. There is a cap at this time of 1.5 million people.
Since the program’s launch, more than 500,000 Californians have added a mobile Driver’s License — a mDL in tech speak — to their phone. Having the original, physical license on hand is still required.
Currently, the mDL program allows digital driver’s licenses and IDs to be shown for select online retail businesses and at the Los Angeles, San Jose Mineta and San Francisco International Airports. But, according to Gordon, digital identification will soon be more widely applicable.
“Coming to all California commercial airports, we’re being told, soon,” he said.
From travel to law enforcement, Gordon said he predicts digital IDs will be a part of “daily life.”
“There are a myriad of use cases,” he said, “that are envisioned by the industry.”
Find out more information at www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/ca-dmv-wallet.
