Road Traffic Authority Participates in 'Mobile Driver's License Implementation Project'... Nationwide Expansion Next Year

Usable Anywhere, Online or Offline

Driver's License Sample. [Photo by Road Traffic Authority]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-ju] The Korea Road Traffic Authority announced on the 4th that it will participate in the 'Mobile Driver's License Establishment Project' promoted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the National Police Agency.

The Mobile Driver's License Establishment Project is part of the Korean New Deal announced by the government in July last year. It aims to resolve the inconveniences of existing plastic ID cards and enable various identity verifications both online and offline.

In the future, the mobile driver's license can be used for identity verification at government offices and will also be expanded to the private sector such as banks. In the online domain, it plans to improve convenience by using it for login and identity information input, which are frequently used on various websites.

The Authority will be responsible for securely issuing and managing driver's licenses on smartphones in this project. The mobile driver's license will be developed by applying the concept of 'Self-Sovereign Identity' to protect users' personal information. This concept is opposite to the existing 'centralized identity verification,' where institutions holding large amounts of identity information provide identity verification services on behalf of individuals. Instead, the identity subject, the individual, owns and controls the use of their identity information.

In particular, the usage history of the ID card will be stored on the individual's smartphone so that only the user can check it, and it will not be stored on a central server, thus alleviating concerns about privacy invasion.

The mobile driver's license will be piloted in selected regions from the end of this year to verify convenience and safety, and then expanded nationwide next year. For applicants, plastic driver's licenses with embedded IC cards will also be issued. If the driver holds a driver's license with an IC card, they can use the IC card recognition function in the 'Mobile ID App' to directly issue a mobile driver's license without visiting the issuance location.

Lee Jumin, Director of the Korea Road Traffic Authority, said, “We expect that the mobile ID project, promoted as part of the government's New Deal policy, will greatly contribute to improving public convenience,” and added, “We will do our best to play a leading role in the successful introduction of the mobile ID system using driver's licenses.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.