He said recreational fishing licences, responsible service of alcohol (RSA) competency cards and responsible conduct of gambling (RCG) competency cards would be transitioned to online forms of verification, which can be displayed on a smartphone. Fraud exists no matter if the licence is plastic or digital.
Advertisement
The state government today announced a programme to transition away from traditional identification cards, starting mid-next year.
Your unflattering photo will remain, but now you’ll be able to carry it around on your smartphone, rather than printed indelibly for the ages on a plastic card. The state now issues 23 million licences every year, across 769 different licence types.
Making good on its 2015 election promise to introduce digital licences, the NSW government is scheduled to deliver the first downloadable batch mid 2016.
Real, physical licenses will still be available, but things like always needing your license in your wallet for driving could soon be a thing of the past. “No wonder so many people dread getting a new licence”.
The New South Wales state government has announced that driving licences will be moving to mobile devices by 2018, following similar deployments with other licences.
The digital licences will have security safeguards in place to protect them from online threats, although exactly what those safeguards will be has not yet been revealed.
In late 2013 and early 2014, the Federal Government’s myGov portal made headlines when a glitch saw the eHealth records of some myGov users opened up to other users and healthcare professionals.
The digital licence would store extra information about the holder that could be useful in an emergency, such as blood type and next-of-kin contact details.
Advertisement
After a raft of scams and the complex technology available, some question the safety of digital licences.
