How Maryland is expanding the use of mobile IDs
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The Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration has developed an app for organizations to verify people’s digital licenses that other jurisdictions can adopt.
Businesses in Maryland can now use a state-developed app to check mobile driver’s licenses for age verification. The app, one official says, looks to innovate and streamline how residents interact with businesses and government organizations in the state.
Mobile IDs have been available for Maryland residents through Apple Wallet since 2022 and through Google Wallet since last year, making the state the first in the nation to do so. Earlier this year, Maryland made mobile IDs downloadable in Samsung Wallet.
Nationwide, at least 14 states have adopted the use of mobile IDs to make age and identity verification more convenient for certain in-person and online processes.
As of Dec. 2, Maryland has seen 259,729 active customers enrolled in the mobile ID option, with 286,762 digital identifications downloaded. Residents have been able to present their digital licenses, accompanied by their physical IDs, at TSA security checkpoints at certain airports, since the initial launch of mobile IDs.
The new Mobile ID Check by MD app looks to expand where residents can use their digital IDs to “make processes not only more secure, but also easier for people,” said Chrissy Nizer, administrator of the Maryland Department of Transportation’s Motor Vehicle Administration.
“People are used to using their phones for so many things now, and, especially post-pandemic, the use of electronic wallets has grown tremendously for a lot of documents and payments,” she said. For residents with a mobile ID, “it doesn’t do you any good unless you have that reader on the other side, and most businesses don’t have the ability like TSA does to buy that equipment so that they can have the readability.”
Developed by the MVA’s IT team, the app is now available on the Apple App Store and Google Play, state officials announced last month. Nizer said since the state’s internal IT programmers built the app, there was no cost associated with the effort.
Several restaurants and bars at the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport have already been using the mobile ID check app. Nizer said potential use cases for the app in the future include identity verification for public benefits programs.
“One of the great features about mobile driver's license is that you as the consumer are always giving approval for that transaction. If you use any of the wallet payment platforms, you always have to do that double click, right?” Nizer said. “Same with a mobile driver's license, you are consenting for the release of your data, and it's only sharing the data that's necessary.”
Businesses using the mobile ID app for age verification will only see necessary information, meaning the app will only present data that confirms if the customer is 18 years old or 21 years old, for instance, and will not reveal other information such as the person’s birth date, she explained.
Maryland is also making the app available to other states for free, Nizer said. “We have a legal agreement that we can sign with another jurisdiction and then provide them the code so they can take it and use it for their own purpose.”
“It’s exciting to see our state employees [moving] this technology forward,” she said. “That’s what it’s really about, allowing customers to have the experience of using the mobile driver’s license in different environments.”
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