The state flags hangs from the rotunda of the Idaho State Capitol Building in Boise on Jan. 7, 2025. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun)
The Idaho House of Representatives on Tuesday narrowly passed a bill to let Idahoans have digital identification cards.
House Bill 78, sponsored by Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, R-Idaho Falls, would allow the Idaho Transportation Department to issue electronic driver’s licenses and ID cards that people could access on their mobile phone’s wallet application.
If the bill becomes law, the new digital driver’s licenses would be optional, not required, and people with a mobile driver’s license would still be required to have a physical driver’s license.
Mickelsen said almost three-forths of states either offer an electronic driver’s license, or are developing one.
“By moving to a mobile driver’s license system, it actually is more secure than the current system in which your driver’s license exists, because it moves it into a … trusted vault that protects your data,” Mickelsen told the House.
She added that digital driver’s licenses would be “an immigration security strategy,” and hopefully help stop fraud in Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as “we build out Idaho’s digital wallet.”
Under the bill, digital driver’s licenses or identification cards would not be allowed as proof of identification at election polls.
The Idaho House passed the bill Tuesday on a 37-33 vote. In the half-hour debate on the bill, several lawmakers raised privacy and security concerns.
The bill now heads to the Idaho Senate. To become law, Idaho bills must pass the House and Senate, and avoid the governor’s veto.
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Several lawmakers raised privacy, security concerns. Debate would be different if lawmakers were younger, one lawmaker says.
Rep. Joe Alfieri, R-Coeur d’Alene, who voted against the bill, raised several privacy concerns.
“We have a much further area to be concerned about, besides our being hacked, our individual information being hacked — the possibility of creating digital citizens who can collect benefits or, by the way, vote,” he argued.
Rep. Rod Furniss, R-Rigby, who voted for the bill, called the bill “a logical step in the right direction” and said the House’s debate on the bill would be different if lawmakers were younger.
“If we had a room full of 25 year olds in this room, they would think we are old fuddy-duddies for not putting this on our phone and not making it legal and not being a step in the right direction,” Furniss told the House. “This is going to come in the future, whether you want it or not.”
Rep. Brandon Mitchell, R–Moscow, who voted against the bill, said sheriffs in his district opposed the bill, along with several university security department heads he talked to.
“‘No, this is a bad idea. My students could hack into that in minutes,’ is what they were telling me,” Mitchell said.
Mickelsen said the bill is supported by many sheriffs, and several cybersecurity experts at Idaho National Laboratory she consulted assured her about possible security risks.
“They all told me that these are some of the highest keys that exist out there in the cyber world. … That it’s a very safe, very reliable system,” she said.
The bill’s fiscal note estimates it will have no fiscal impact, since ITD has already been allocated money for similar projects.
The bill would also not automatically let law enforcement officers search people’s phones if people present their digital ID cards.
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