Tasmania begins exploring business case for mobile driver’s license

The Australian State of Tasmania’s interim budget earmarks funding to develop a business case for implementing a digital drivers license (also known as a mobile driver’s license or mDL).

Details are not provided in the budget paper, and the initiative was not mentioned in the Treasurer’s speech to the state legislature.

Four of Australia’s other states and territories, South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria, have active mDLs.

Queensland is the only one of the four with an mDL compliant with the ISO/IEC 18013 standard. The state began after the other three, engaging with Thales in 2020, and gained a kind of second-mover advantage by waiting, though Customer Services Minister Steve Minnikin has suggested replacing it with one offering broader functionality.

The Australian Capital Territory has already stated its intent to let the other states and territories settle on common standards before implementing its own mDL, InnovationAus reports. The Northern Territory is working towards a planned launch of mDL pilots by the end of this year. The leaves Western Australia as the only state without an mDL or a program to work toward issuing one.

mDoc alignment, agreed and pending

All Australian states and territories agreed in June of 2024 to adopt the mDoc format specified in ISO 18013, Valid8 Founder Chris Goh points out in a recent episode of Trinsic’s “The Future of Identity” podcast.

Goh is also the former National Harmonisation Lead for Australia’s mDL programs, and developed Queensland’s digital IDs.

The alignment around mDoc is expected to extend beyond mDLs, as Goh says early investigation into IDs and government service delivery revealed that driving licenses are used, on average, 50 times for service access and other purposes for each driving-related use.

mDocs’ offline usefulness and cross-platform interoperability were attractive to Austroads and Goh, he says.

Host Riley Hughes and Goh discuss the potential for fragmentation increasing in the mDoc space and how certification can mitigate that challenge and ensure a practical level of stability even as innovation continues.

Goh also traces the server retrieval capability built into the ISO 18013 standard back to its roots in the payment card industry. Like early digital IDs modeled on the “flash pass” concept, the cultural norms and expectations about how the credential should work has changed, he says. And issuers need to meet people at a point where they are willing to adopt the technology.

Article Topics

Australia  |  digital ID  |  government services  |  ISO 18013  |  mDL (mobile driver's license)  |  mDL verification  |  mDoc  |  Tasmania  |  Valid8