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Finland Will Introduce a Mobile 'Driver's License' App (yle.fi)
The Finnish Broadcasting Corporation reports:
Simo Karppinen, Unit Head at the Finnish Transport and Safety Agency Trafi, says it plans to roll out an app that will function as a free digital driving license by the end of summer. The agency said it expects many Finns to take up the use of the digital driving license as soon as it is released. The digital license has been in use by a test group who report successfully using the app where proof of identity is required, such as picking up postal packages. Other uses for the digital license include informing the owner of license renewal dates... The digital driving license will not record the location of its user or serve as a tracking device.
Slashdot reader Kiuas writes that it's being used as a supplement for traditional card licenses rather than a replacement, because "Current Finnish law mandates that all driver's licenses are handed out in a physical form. So everyone will still get a physical driver's license, but those who wish to do so can now leave their card at home and use the app instead.
Slashdot reader Kiuas writes that it's being used as a supplement for traditional card licenses rather than a replacement, because "Current Finnish law mandates that all driver's licenses are handed out in a physical form. So everyone will still get a physical driver's license, but those who wish to do so can now leave their card at home and use the app instead.
Truth-on-server. The officer doesn't rely on on the information displayed on the screen to do anything except point at an entry in the police-accessible database. And that database must already exist, since the State today has to keep track of whose license is expired, who got a DUI, who has a CDL/motorcycle endorsement, etc...
For instance, you could easily have you phone display a QR-code that encoded something like license-tracker://US.California.DLIDv2.1234512345 (someone probably screwed up v1). All the information then comes down from the already-existing-today backend. If you lie and say you are record #5432154321, then hope that person's photo looks just like you (and anyway, look-alike photos are an equal problem with physical licenses, couple of my friends had older siblings above the drinking age :-) )
This is actually step up in security from truth-in-hard-to-forge-plastic with fancy holograms and other anti-counterfeiting measures. The essence there is the relying party assessing whether the document is legitimate. In the truth-on-server model, the relying party checks their own authoritative record and doesn't have to trust anything from outside it.
[ Of course, this is assuming all-online. Obviously hard-to-forge instruments were created expressly for offline verification. The construction of a hybrid approach is left as an exercise for the reader. ]