mDL fragmentation clouds US digital ID landscape as adoption ticks steadily up

The state of digital ID in the United States is, in a word, fragmented. Trinsic’s webinar on the “State of Mobile Driver’s Licenses in the U.S.” makes that clear. This is not great news for American people and relying parties in government and business, but it does make Trinsic’s value proposition as an acceptance orchestrator obvious.

Availability up, alignment not so much

Director of Product Partnerships Zack Jones pointed out in the webinar that those states that have begun at least developing mDLs are home to 76 percent of Americans. Forty-one percent live in states where they are being issued already, and the pace of launches is increasing over time. Jones reiterated Trinsic’s prediction that 2025 will see the most in any year yet.

Trinsic also believes the suspended mDL programs in Florida, Oklahoma and Missouri “will be relaunching soon,” he says.

Jones shared a graphic from the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) on mDL interoperability, which shows varying degrees of interoperability in different states, with only a handful issuing a public key to the digital trust service so far. There are “about 21 states live, and 17 different wallets,” Jones notes on how fragmented the ecosystem is at the moment.

Further, mDL availability also depends on what mobile wallet the consumer has. There are 11 states that issue digital IDs into Apple Wallets, plus Puerto Rico, 9 that issue into Google Wallet, and 7 issuing into each of Samsung and Idemia-made digital wallets. Then there are 6 standalone apps, four of which are the only option in their state. Arizona is the only state to issue mDLs into Apple, Google, Samsung and Idemia wallets.

Google also offers its ID Pass, a derived passport credential that is accepted by TSA as well.

North Dakota’s mDL went live for Apple, Google, and Samsung wallets just weeks ago.

Jones reviewed the progress towards U.S. and global alignment around the ISO/IEC 18013 standard, and its in-person and online identity verification implications. The common assumption that all mDLs and digital wallets would support remote ID verification through ISO 18013-7 will eventually come true, he believes, but may take more time than some proponents had initially hoped.

The presentation mechanisms used, so far, are highly fragmented between 18013-7 through OpenID4VP, 18013-7 through REST, the digital credentials API and proprietary SDKs.

By Trinsic’s count, there are roughly 8 million mDLs issued in the U.S. so far, led by Louisiana with around 2 million. Jones says the company has kept its estimate conservative, as California is the only state with clear and constant updates, leaving significant room for uncertainty. Louisiana’s mDL was also introduced before the 18013 standard was finalized, so does not comply with the standard.

States like Louisiana and Colorado have the highest adoption not just because they have been around longer, however. They also enable other functionalities, like licenses for fishing or hunting, or renewing auto registration. This puts them more in line with an approach seen in other countries, Jones notes.

Adoption takes use cases, use cases take work

For Trinsic, mDL wallets from California, Louisiana, Google and Samsung, while those from Idemia, Alaska and Apple are in progress. It is not yet feasible for Trinsic to integrate the mDL wallets for Colorado, Virginia and Utah, according to the presentation.

The degree of fragmentation creates challenges for relying parties to accept them. They do not all communicate in the same way. Their data is not all formatted the same way. The level of assurance is generally high, but authentication methods or additional validation, such as with biometrics and liveness detection, may be necessary and introduce more complexity into implementations. There are also non-technical considerations, such as for handling the data, Jones notes.

The recent AAMVA conference in Phoenix showcased some reasons for optimism about the ecosystem, however, Jones says. The above digital wallet provider plus Thales presented new capabilities and partnerships for mDLs, and a proof of concept with Indeed showed onboarding time (including biometric authentication) reduced from 45 seconds down to 9.

Presenters at the conference showed the logos of major consumer brands including Amazon and Uber among early adopters of mDLs, suggesting more acceptance announcements are coming.

More integrations and relying parties, he says, will lead to more users.

“We believe that once some of these key use cases get off the ground, we could see adoption really start to pick up quickly,” Jones says.

For relying parties taking the step, Trinsic recommends starting regional pilots and working on accepting other digital IDs while U.S. mDLs scale up.

Article Topics

AAMVA  |  biometrics  |  consumer adoption  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  digital wallets  |  mDL (mobile driver's license)  |  Trinsic  |  United States