New year will see mobile driver’s licenses come of age: Trinsic CEO

A recent webinar from Trinsic takes stock of the eID sector in 2024 and looks ahead to upcoming launches and adoption trends for 2025.

For Trinsic, eIDs are government-led identity schemes and credentials. (Versus reIDs, which are private sector reusable identities, and bankIDs, which are digital IDs specific to banks.) Across government initiatives globally, the coming year is set to bring rapid transformation in the areas of mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs), national digital identities, wallets, trust frameworks and decentralized identity.

Half of U.S. states to have mDL programs running in 2025

Trinsic’s webinar zooms in on key advancements in mobile driver’s licenses in 2024 and what they mean for the future of identity verification. Company CEO Riley Hughes predicts that in 2025, 50 percent of U.S. states will have a live digital driver’s license – not a given, but not a radical prediction, given that 14 already have active mDL programs and another 15 are mDLs planning to launch soon.

Still, after a long period of drag, recent growth has been swift, and more is coming. The recently published winter market snapshot from the Secure Technology Alliance’s Identity and Access Forum (IAF), nearly 70 percent of states are anticipated to adopt mDLs in the next two years.

Hughes says that talking about mDLs a year ago, “everybody would have basically said, ‘we’re watching it and we’ll see.’ Now you talk to folks and the conversation is much more like, not only are we watching it but we are planning around this. We’re expecting this to be relevant soon and we’re planning for it.”

eIDAS, verification standards driving mobile driver’s licenses uptake

The same goes for eIDAS 2.0, which has matured from a thing that’s going to happen into a thing that is happening now. Hughes notes the large-scale pilot program for the EUDI wallet scheme as a major shift in digital culture.

Identity verification is increasingly common across platforms, as digital regulations finally catch up with technology. Hughes cites the publication of ISO/IEC TS 18013-7:2024 as an enabler of remote identity verification using mDLs as a major driver of uptake.

National ID systems continue to grow globally, with Hughes pointing to Nigeria, the Philippines and India’s Aadhaar as notable examples. Private reusable IDs, such as those provided (in large numbers) by Clear and ID.me, are also on the rise, with new reusable ID launches from Shufti Pro and Ondato. And in 2024, more digital platforms, such as Uber and LinkedIn, embraced identity verification measures.

Trust frameworks crucial in busy digital ID market

In 2025, it’s likely more of the same – which is to say, more transformation in the areas of mDLs, national digital identities, wallets, trust frameworks and decentralized identity.

Mobile driver’s licenses will continue to expand in the States. Hughes says eight states will launch mDLs in 2025: Illinois, Montana, Tennessee, New Jersey, North Dakota, Wyoming, North Carolina and West Virginia.

He believes more national IDs will come into being (in Jamaica and Papua New Guinea, for instance) and mDLs are likely to spread globally, as well, with Hong Kong, for one, preparing a launch in 2025. In terms of decentralized identity, protocols such as QuarkID are “expanding geographies.”

Wallets will be big, as EU nations roll out their national digital ID wallets. Hughes gives special attention to trust frameworks as a key part of the equation. “Trust frameworks are really important,” he says, “especially in a world where consumers have a lot of choice with regard to digital ID. So we’re watching out for these schemes or trust frameworks and paying close attention to how these different ID networks are governed and accepted around the world.”

More businesses to accept digital IDs in 2025

Hughes’ formal predictions for 2025 do not veer too far off script. More businesses will accept digital IDs. Government digital IDs will open up to identity verification from private sector third parties. Overall progress on eIDAS will be on the slow side but individual nations will launch early.

One prediction comes from the pages of Biometric Update – specifically the Oct 17, 2024 report that Amazon is planning to start accepting digital IDs like mDLs in 2025. Hughes calls the move “totally reasonable,” given the present state of the industry, particularly advances in remote verification of mDLs.

Reusable IDs will become the norm for identity verification vendors. “I think that by the end of 2025 it’s going to be rare to find document-based identity verification companies that don’t offer a reusable ID product,” Hughes says.

Finally, he believes private sector reusable IDs will be “aggressive in building their networks,” pointing to Clear’s significant recent increase from 17 million identities to 25 million identities.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  decentralized ID  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  digital wallets  |  ISO 18013  |  mDL (mobile driver's license)  |  remote identity proofing  |  Trinsic  |  trust framework