Tech Comes To The Department Of Transportation

Iowa will be the first state in the U.S. to use a mobile app to access driver’s licenses.

Iowa will be the first state in the U.S. to use a mobile app to access driver’s licenses. The Iowa Department of Transportation is organizing an electronic version of the license  which would be free and acceptable to use during airport screening, at bars, during police searchers, etc. The DOT is hoping to make this a reality in early 2015, and will be housed in an “identity vault app”. It would look similar to an electronic boarding pass, and would have difficult-to-forge features to eliminate fake IDs. According to Mashable, Mark Lowe, director of the motor vehicle division at Iowa DOT, said “We're looking into using optical bar codes and 3D-like photos for licenses that move, like when images come alive in still shots in the Harry Potter movies.”

The Iowa Department of Transportation is organizing an electronic version of the license  which would be free and acceptable to use during airport screening, at bars, during police searchers, etc.

First reported by The Des Moines Register earlier this week, it was revealed during a budget hearing. In response to security concerns, Lowe says “Right now, there is no way to disable a driver's license or do a true electronic verification. Users would enter a PIN number for verification, and we might include facial recognition and iris or fingerprint scanning in the future. We would make it so only the actual owner of the license would be able to access the account — and we would use digital watermark technology to do so too.” They are hoping that the pilot test will roll out within the next six months, and with luck, it will catch on in other states, just as electronic boarding passes caught on after the safety was confirmed.

Iowa transportation industry is paving the future through technology. They also allow for electronic versions of insurance, and are working on an app that disables smartphones when the user is driving.