ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — The state of Florida wants to go digital with driver's licenses, Channel 9's Racquel Asa learned.
The state has been considering digital driver's licenses since 2014.
By going digital, drivers will be able to put their license information on their phones.
“It would cut down on the wait in (the tax collector’s office), because there's a lot of other business that they could handle in here,” said resident Christina Hilton.
Orange County handles 360,000 driver’s license transactions every year. The county could soon have software that allows drivers to update their addresses without having to go to the tax collector’s office.
“Being able to take those transactions out of the office would have a tremendous impact,” said Scott Randolph, Orange County's tax collector.
Other states are already testing similar technology with a company called Gemalto.
Maryland, Washington, D.C., Idaho and Colorado are using a similar system in which a driver's license contains a barcode that can be scanned to confirm authenticity.
Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-District 24, who is on a transportation committee told Eyewitness News that going digital is a natural step for the state that already allows people to use a digital copy of car insurance.
Eyewitness News questioned on how safe it is to have a digital driver’s license on a phone.
“These types of apps are very amenable to upgrading, and so we'll be upgrading security features much more regularly than we currently upgrade our physical driver's licenses,” Brandes said.
The state Legislature has until May 5 to approve digital driver's licenses. If that happens, software testing could begin in January.
Cox Media Group
