Digital drivers licenses in California

They will be the norm, and likely not too far in the future. See https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2023/01/roughly-30-sta....

The technology is also being done in accordance with ISO 18103-5 international standard for mobile IDs.

https://www.aamva.org/topics/mobile-driver-license#?wst=4a3b...

Like so many other well intended ideas, The digital drivers license plan doesn't fully address all the possible pitfalls.

https://securityboulevard.com/2021/09/digital-drivers-licens...

Among other potential problems mentioned in the above link, poor or non existent cellphone coverage as well as those without smartphones seem to be marginalized or ignored completely.

Don't worry, nothing can go wrong if California says it's OK.
OK, I almost spit my coffee after trying not to laugh....

I guess we better not ever lose our phone, have it stolen, or have it just stop working or we will be in deep doo-doo.

Maybe the government will issue a phone to every new-born so they can begin their life-time tethering to the device.

And for all those folks who don't have, or can't afford a mobile phone, don't worry the President will issue a phone to everyone who wants one at the next election....

Maybe they should also require a legal photo of your fingerprint to be on the phone so the "checkers" can make sure the person having the phone is really who they say they are.

Heck, 75% of the time I don't even have the phone with me when I leave the house.

It would be easier if they required all of us to have a microchip implant that they could scan. A side benefit would be that they could implement an electronic barrier fence around a city, or state, to keep people from wandering.....

I don't have to like it but that doesn't mean squat. If they decide to implement this there will have to be an adjustment period. I can't imagine universal acceptance.

These mDL id's become mandatory I'll likely acquire a device specifically for that purpose and use it for nothing else.

I can only see lots of problems with this.

will people where I live do, will they be able to pay a fee so that they display nothing, or will cos start making thicker dark frames

Around here about 1/5 license plates cannot be read from directly behind the vehicle and nobody does a thing

We had a VP of Marketing who had to go to California every quarter or so to visit a plant that we owned in Fremont. I remember every time that he had to make the trip, he would stop by by my office on his way out of the facility and would always say that he was off to the land of the fruits and the nuts. He did not like going to California and he was glad when they eventually closed down the plant. Those people out there are living in a different universe.

Be careful of what you wish for.
"It would be easier if they required all of us to have a microchip implant that they could scan. A side benefit would be that they could implement an electronic barrier fence around a city, or state, to keep people from wandering....."

Wasn't a wish, it was sarcasm, but I guess you missed that.

And as a former resident (15+ years) of California, I know your friend was not talking about the Imperial Valley region in southern California.

It requires a person to always have their cell phone available and working. I have used digital tickets at different venues and a few times have not been able to open the tickets. Thank goodness, I also print out a copy just in case. What if there is a problem with your phone, or poor wifi service.

Nothing in any of the linked article says you HAVE to adopt this ... if you don't want it, you can always keep your card. Just use that.

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it's the dog's fault

I think you would be storing your electronic driver license in a mobile device wallet, so you wouldn't be dependent on cellular service to produce it on request. A significant portion of California has no cellular service. Of course the device has to be charged and working to show the e-license.

Nonetheless if you were pulled over by police or needed to cross a checkpoint and could not display your e-license for whatever reason, I do not think you would get any benefit of the doubt that you were who you said you were.

There are significant numbers of people that can manage a hard copy of a license but cannot/do not have smartphones for various reasons, so I don't know how government could require everyone in a state to go e-license/ID only. But anything's possible. They sometimes start these things as options and then eventually start requiring them for convenience and security--theirs more than ours of course.

Ticketmaster no longer issues paper tickets to most attendees of many concert, sports, etc. events booked through them. It gives them much better control of entry to the event... when it works. It does shut out potential customers who can't manage smartphones.

One of my kids had (has?) a Colorado E-License. IIRC it required signing in each and every use and all the baggage that comes with that.

You just have to print them out yourself. Saves them all kinds of money for paper, postage, etc. (Even though they will still charge you a handling fee.)

Certain TicketMaster events or venues are now e-ticket only. We were trying to get our son concert tickets at Madison Square Garden as a gift. We'd pay, print, and mail them to him. Nope. Not unless we were willing to mail him our phone, because the tickets had to be mobile tickets on the purchaser's phone.

https://help.ticketmaster.com/hc/en-us/articles/961149305742...

They were very clear that the event was e-ticket on a smartphone only before you bought the tickets. Oh, TicketMaster does say that for some events, you can transfer your e-tickets to someone else's phone. One problem. You don't find out whether that's allowed for your event until after you've paid for the tickets, at which point, the purchase is non-refundable, making it impractical for gifts.

Really!!! Open your phone and hand it to a cop? If that is not an opportunity for abuse, I don't know what is.

I want to give credit to upstanding police officers, but today there are too many bad ones out there, for this to be a good idea.

what happends when we have solar flare, and it knocks all communications out or did we forget that !

I agree that this ought be a consideration. Nevertheless I just don't remember it ever happening. Have we had such an occurrence?

If it hasn't happened I can’t forget it. I can remember coronal mass ejections but none that caused UHF cellphone failures. Yet.

In the last century they barcoded people.... As someone mentioned earlier, this time around rfid chips may be embedded at birth.

Coming to a state near you!

When were people barcoded, and by which country?

Certain people were tatooed with serial numbers during WW2, yes.

It's another way for the government to have control over you, along with your digital bank accounts

here at POI Factory. I learned something new this morning. I will have to watch out for this when I purchase tickets from TicketMaster. Always trying to make things more difficult for us old timers. (Or, should I say, the mature folks.)

My apologies. Serialized, not barcoded, but ultimately the same thing.

but referring to smartphones, "Never Had It, Never Will". I have a dumb phone, $6/month unlimited calls and text messages. I get a few texts a week, rarely get phone calls.

So what will I do? My existing PA DL is scannable by TSA, why do I need something more?

I held out for years after everyone else had made the move but finally was assimilated and sucked into the smartphone vortex. When I had a dumb phone, I'd tell people, don't text me and expect a reply, because it's too frustrating to try to reply. There are conveniences to it, but way less privacy and much higher cost, you're right.

https://jalopnik.com/downsides-to-californias-digital-driver...

Very interesting to expand the comments at the bottom and read about the concerns that people have. Many of the concerns have been echoes here, but there are some new ones.

See https://sfstandard.com/2023/09/04/california-dmv-now-offers-...

Sign of things to come. Violate a traffic law and your car will transmit that infraction with your drivers licensed ID to the authorities whereby they cite you for that infraction. Then it will automatically debit your checking account if you do nothing or if you choose to fight it there will be a surcharge assessed whether you win or lose. Gotta love it.

The land of fruits, and nuts. The sane ones are leaving like rats on a sinking ship.

if digital will yield the same info as regular DL? A few things, the most recent being about two weeks ago when I was pulled over for doing about 45 mph in a 35 mph speed zone. The trooper, seeing my veteran status on my DL asked where I had served. I replied Naval Officer, Vietnam, from 1965 to about 1968. He walked away with my DL and registration and returned saying just a warning because his sergeant was a Marine and felt it beneath him to ticket a Naval Officer.

On another occasion, again “slightly” speeding (10+), I was pulled over. I said to the trooper that I did not know what his computer screen might show, but I was licensed to carry and indeed was doing so but my pistol was in the trunk. He returned a few minutes later, told me he was thankful I was up front honest, and let me go with a verbal warning.

I wonder how these two incidents would have played out with some QR code (or similar) on a smartphone (which I don’t have)?

doesn't excite me either.

On the topic of digital, got a new card from citibank to replace a soon expiring one.

The addressee window has my name & address visible through. Immediately to the left of this is a qr code. For sh!ts/giggles I scanned it with my phone. Turns out to be the 16 digit credit card number. Granted this is not usable in and of itself without the exp date and cvv2 code, but still. Why would they effectively print the card number visible to anyone!@?#

Once you get converted to all digital (ID's, bank accts, driver's license, etc), you're screwed. At the click of a mouse button, the gov can make you persona non grata, and a non-person. Basically, you technically don't exist. And neither does your bank account etc.

Don't think it can't, or won't happen.