[Veon] Beyond regulations, towards the future! “Regulatory Sandbox” Story ② “Mobile Driver’s License” Introduction Case

Plastic cards are a thing of the past – welcome to the mobile ID era!

Recently, the Korean-style regulatory sandbox system has been implemented, and various new products and services are being launched to improve citizens’ convenience. Notably, the ‘Mobile Driver’s License,’ which made it possible to live without a wallet, is a key example. Previously, driver’s licenses were issued only in plastic form, but now they are being made available on users’ mobile devices.

The current Road Traffic Act and its implementing regulations stipulate that driver’s licenses must be ‘86mm x 54mm (PVC (vinyl) 980.4g/㎡)’, preventing their issuance in other formats. Many people carry several of the same-sized ID cards in their wallets because they rarely use them, and this often results in a lack of them when needed or lost. According to statistics, over a million driver’s licenses were lost in 2017.

To this end, the three major mobile carriers and the National Police Agency are seeking ways to allow citizens to conveniently carry driver’s licenses, and they ultimately received a temporary approval from the Ministry of Science and ICT through the regulatory sandbox system to introduce ‘Mobile Driver’s Licenses.’ With this temporary approval, ‘Mobile Driver’s Licenses’ can be used for ‘Driver’s License Verification’ and for ‘Personal Identification’ in daily life. As a result, users of the ‘Mobile Driver’s License’ service can now go out with just a mobile phone, such as when buying beer at a convenience store or renting a car or when driving.

Now, will mobile national ID cards come too?

The National Police Agency has been using ‘Mobile Driver’s Licenses’ in the driver’s license renewal or reissue and foreign driver’s license issuance processes at driver’s license testing grounds, and the three major mobile carriers and the National Police Agency intend to apply ‘Mobile Driver’s Licenses’ to various police administrative tasks, such as traffic police interrogations. They also plan to expand the scope to use them as verification for personal identification in financial institutions and government offices.

In light of this trend, the government has announced that it will officially introduce mobile driver’s licenses by next year, and has amended the Road Traffic Act to provide a legal basis for mobile driver’s licenses, and is preparing to clarify detailed technical aspects, such as security, to respond to the development and service situation of new technologies. Therefore, the scope of ‘Mobile Driver’s License’ use is likely to continue to expand.

In fact, in addition to Korea, mobile driver’s licenses are being introduced and operated in Louisiana, USA, and New South Wales, Australia, and many other countries are currently conducting pilot operations or are pursuing their introduction, and the scope of use is also continuing to expand.

In Korea as well, after the Agency for Administrative Affairs & Technology issued ‘Smartphones based Digital ID’ last year, it has started issuing certificates for government employees and students, and recently, 12 people, including MP Im O-gyeong, proposed a revised law on national ID card issuance to address the issuance of mobile national ID cards. It seems that the issuance of mobile national ID cards is just around the corner.

Check out the Regulatory Sandbox System

The changes in lifestyle due to the introduction of these new technologies and services began with the Regulatory Sandbox System. If a new technology or service cannot be commercialized due to regulations, utilizing various regulatory sandbox systems can be a good way to address it.

Law Firm Veat has gained experience reviewing more than 200 regulatory sandbox projects, and is providing legal guidance on the scope of regulations applied to new technologies or services and business plans, and is explaining the application procedures and support programs that many companies and businesses are curious about in relation to actual regulatory sandbox applications.