Digital driving licences to launch this year as government plans smartphone ID app

UK motorists will soon be able to store and use their driving licences on their phones as part of government plans to launch a new smartphone app. The Gov.uk app, which is set to arrive this year, would securely store licence details and allow them to be used as a form of ID for buying age-restricted products, including alcohol, voting or travelling on domestic flights. 

The app will allow customers at self service checkouts to verify their own age, eliminating the need to wait for a member of staff and would mean driving licence information could be updated digitally. It would allow motorists to present their driving licence when required without carrying the physical card with them, eliminating the risk of it being lost or damaged.

A government spokesperson told the BBC that: "This government is committed to using technology to make people's lives easier and transform public services. Technology now makes it possible for digital identities to be more secure than physical ones, but we remain clear that they will not be made mandatory."

The technology is said to stop short of being a full UK digital ID card, a concept that has caused concern among privacy campaigners in the past, but it would store national insurance numbers and could eventually integrate other government services including tax and benefits claims. 

The driving licence information would be stored on the app in such a way that motorists could use it as ID without revealing unnecessary information such as their address. It would also make use of existing security features on modern smartphones such as fingerprints, facial recognition and multi-factor authentication. 

The DVLA has made it clear as far back as 2016 that digital driving licences were being developed and it looks like we could have the first ones in circulation in the UK before the end of the year. Similar technology is already being used in Australia and Denmark while the EU requires all member states to launch some form of digital ID before 2026.

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