California running hackathons to promote mDL adoption in different industries

The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) invites businesses, public agencies, and individuals to create applications that utilize the state’s mobile driver’s license (mDL). Two community hackathons are scheduled to take place later this year, in October and November.

The state will provide the necessary tools and technical assistance to the chosen teams, according to the announcement, including test credentials in the CA DMV Wallet. This preparation will enable participants to develop and showcase potential applications during the event.

The goal is to encourage the private sector to incorporate mDLs into various industries while also enabling the public sector to explore government-focused applications. The DMV is coordinating these events in partnership with the OpenID Foundation to integrate digital identities into customer experiences.

The co-organizers will review the submissions, focusing on the relevance, feasibility, and potential for expansion of the proposed use cases. Private-sector applicants whose applications were received before the deadline of August 9, 2024, will be notified by August 16, 2024, while public-sector applicants will receive notification in the first week of September.

California took the initiative to develop its own vendor-agnostic mobile wallet and driver’s license. This project was recognized with the 2023 Innovation Award for Government from Gartner. Two key technology partners involved in this project were SpruceID, a data-security company responsible for building the wallet and digital ID service, and iProov, which provided face biometrics and liveness detection to authenticate users.

Christopher Goh, the national harmonization lead for digital identity at Austroads, has shared a one-pager document on LinkedIn. The document discusses the various standards within the ISO/IEC 180130-5 framework, specifically related to mDL.

The standards include other parts of ISO 18013 and other ISO/IEC standards, along with others from the IETF (in the form of RFCs), OAuth, FIPS, and communication protocols. These standards cover a range of topics, including the physical card, digital presentation, biometrics, digital certificate, digital signatures, authentication and verification, and device transmission, all of which are relevant to the implementation and use of mDL.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  California  |  digital ID  |  driver's license  |  ISO 18013  |  ISO standards  |  mDL (mobile driver's license)  |  mDL verification  |  research and development