New Mexico mDL goes live amid uneven state progress

Mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs) are now available in New Mexico, where residents can load them into either their Apple Wallet or Google Wallet.

New Mexico is the ninth state with an mDL in production supported by both Apple and Google Wallet.

The mDL can be verified for in-person transactions by initiating a connection by scanning a QR Code, after which encrypted data is transmitted through Bluetooth, according to the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division (NMMVD). License-holders in the state can enroll their ID by scanning it within the app, enrolling their face biometrics, and then sending both to the NMMVD for approval.

Technology suppliers for New Mexico’s mDL have not been disclosed.

Like digitized versions of U.S. passports, these digital IDs can be used at “select TSA checkpoints across the country,” but do not replace the physical passport for use at immigration and border checks. Two among those select locations are Albuquerque Sunport and at the Lea County Regional Airport, where mDL acceptance will go live within weeks.

The privacy standards underpinning mDLs continue to evolve, meanwhile, with the ISO SC 17/WG 10 discussing how to layer zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) onto the mDoc mDL format. FaceTec VP of Global Standards Andrew Hughes says in a LinkedIn post that a conversation at the group’s meeting last week in Sapporo included “a proposal to create ‘circuits’ designed to act as deviceResponse objects instead of the current attributes+MSO,” with the device public key unshared to prevent unwanted correlation.

Hughes will join a Ryan Galuzzo from NIST for a Biometric Update webinar discussing the integration and interoperability of mDLS and digital wallets based on ISO 18013 on December 19.

No winds of change in Illinois

Illinois is supposed to begin issuing mDLs on January 1, 2025, but no update on the state program has been given since August, when Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias expressed not just support but excitement for it, Patch reports.

Giannoulias’ office did not respond to questions from the publication about what progress has been made towards the mDLs launch.

That’s when Governor J.B. Pritzker signed the bill to establish the program, following amendments to clarify privacy and liability rules.  H.B. 4592 directs the Secretary of State to issue the digital IDs by the New Year’s Day deadline, so either an announcement is imminent, or the deadline will be missed.

California pilot leads in issuance

Ajay Gupta expects remote transactions, whether identity verification or confirmation of an attribute like age, will be the use case which grows the most in the immediate future. He was speaking in the latest episode of Trinsic’s “The Future of Identity” podcast.

Asked by Trinsic CEO Riley Hughes why more states have not already pushed out mDLs, Gupta says: “The motivation of doing it is a no-brainer, the effort of doing it is probably it.”

That motivation is not just about giving state residents the best technology to make access to public and private services convenient. It is also about reducing costs for the DMV, since interactions with residents through the online channel are less costly than its legacy channels, like snail mail. The same change can similarly drive down costs for other government departments, while also reducing the cost of fraud within the system, which is inevitably pushed down to consumers.

California’s rollout is a pilot so far, but Gupta says the only limitation so far is on the number of users. Furthermore, the program issued the most mDLs in the nation, Gupta says, despite having not yet reached its limit of 1.5 million.

California’s mDL is provided with liveness detection provided by iProov and age verification capabilities from TruAge in a DMV wallet made by Spruce ID, but also become available in Apple Wallet in September.

Article Topics

Apple Wallet  |  biometrics  |  California  |  digital ID  |  digital wallets  |  Google Wallet  |  ISO 18013  |  ISO 18013-5  |  mDL (mobile driver's license)  |  New Mexico  |  United States