OpenID Foundation calls for collaboration on mDLs between private, public sectors

Dec 17, 2024, 4:37 pm EST | Chris Burt

OpenID Foundation calls for collaboration on mDLs between private, public sectors

The OpenID Foundation is urging public and private sector organizations to get together on privacy-preserving solutions for digital identity to advance their adoption in the wake of a pair of community mobile driver’s license (mDL) hackathons.

The hackathons co-hosted by OIDF and the California Department of Motor Vehicles brought in a range of participants from the public and private sectors, addressing 25 real-world use cases. They were successful in demonstrating the value of mDLs as secure digital credentials for use cases in financial services, retail, healthcare and entertainment, OIDF says.

Importantly, they also addressed the “Cold Start Problem,” which is the struggle to gain traction on the different sides of a market without first having it on the others.

The OpenID for Verifiable Credentials (OID4VC) specifications are referenced in both ISO/IEC 18013-5 and ISO/IEC 18013-7, which deal with storing and interfacing with an mDL on a mobile device and the use of mDLs in remote transactions, respectively. The California DMV has also built OID4VC into its mDL architecture, and the European Commission has included it in the EIDAS 2.0 Architecture Reference Framework, the organization points out.

NIST Applied Cybersecurity Division Digital Identity Lead Ryan Galluzzo and FaceTec VP of Global Standards Andrew Hughes will join Biometric Update to present a webinar explaining the latest developments and implications of the ISO/IEC 18013 standard.

The webinar will be held on Thursday, December 19 at 1:00 PM Eastern, and registration is free.

“It’s clear that mDLs are firmly on the digital identity agenda in the United States, but we are not yet at the tipping point where digital identity credentials are universally available to Americans or can be presented everywhere Americans would like to use them online and in person,” says OIDF Executive Director Gail Hodges.

Now, OIDF is inviting more companies, government agencies and non-profit organizations to join it in collaborating to advance the adoption of mDLs and other digital credentials.

The California DMV will hold a public briefing on the hackathon results on January 10, 2025.