The UK authorities goes to launch an app that may enable residents to digitize their driver’s licenses. Science Secretary Peter Kyle introduced on Tuesday that the GOV.UK Wallet launching for Android and iOS units later this yr will let customers securely retailer government-issued paperwork on their telephone, permitting them to be accessed instantly as a substitute of ready for bodily variations to reach within the mail.
The pockets will make the most of smartphone safety features like facial recognition to assist defend customers’ private information. Veteran playing cards for former navy personnel would be the first paperwork supported, adopted by a pilot for cellular driver’s licenses “later in 2025.” All UK authorities providers that present paper or card credentials shall be anticipated to supply a digital different by 2027. Traditional bodily paperwork will nonetheless be out there.
“Along with CDs, the Walkman, and flip telephones, the overflowing drawer rammed with letters from the federal government and hours spent on maintain to get a fundamental appointment will quickly be consigned to historical past,” Kyle stated within the announcement. “GOV.UK Wallet will imply that each letter or identification doc you obtain from the federal government might be issued to you nearly.”
According to Kyle, the brand new digital pockets app is meant to provide UK residents extra management over their very own information, making it simpler to show eligibility for welfare advantages and buy age-restricted merchandise in shops. People within the UK are at the moment required to current bodily identification paperwork (if assumed to be underage) when clubbing or buying alcohol, operating the chance of getting them misplaced or stolen.
The UK can be launching a brand new GOV.UK app in summer season 2025 that may enable customers to entry authorities info, and, finally, full duties like canceling stolen passports and making use of for welfare advantages from their telephones.
There are additionally plans so as to add an AI-powered chatbot, imaginatively known as “GOV.UK Chat,” to the app, which TechCrunch studies was co-developed by OpenAI, and so as to add “methods to make funds and obtain well timed notifications” for presidency providers.
