Driving around without your physical driver's license might soon be completely legal in Delaware. If Delaware is able to become the first state to approve digital driver's licenses, drivers could leave their plastic cards at home and just carry their phones with them while driving.

Delawareonline reports that the state of Delaware wants to offer a digital form of the state's driver's licenses through a secure smartphone app.

"We'd like to go first," Jennifer Cohan, director of the Delaware Division of Motor Vehicles, said. "If it works for Delaware, then it will be a new option for Delaware citizens to show proof of driver's license and identification."

Delaware's state Senate told Cohan's agency, via a resolution last week, to study and look into a way of getting digitial licenses installed in Delaware.

Iowa shares the same driver's license vendor with Delaware and 40 other states and will craft a pilot program to get the digital driver's licenses going. The app that would support the digital licenses is set to be rolled out in 2016.

The vendor, MorphoTrust, has been working on this idea for about two years.

"It's an idea whose time has come," Jenny Openshaw, MorphoTrust's vice president for state and local sales, explained.

Customers would have the choice of leaving their plastic IDs at home and using the smartphone app, or, if they like, they can continue to carry around their traditional plastic ID.

"Smartphones are becoming more and more a digital wallet. Eventually, the last piece of plastic I need to carry around with me is a driver's license," Openshaw added.

Since last year, Delaware has allowed motorists to carry around digital proof of insurance on their smartphones rather than the paper form in their gloveboxes.

Cohan says the convenience with a digital license will help out motorists.

"If our meetings go well over the next couple of weeks, it may be something we can pilot sooner, rather than later," Cohan said.

To remain secure, the app would require some sort of unique password like a fingerprint scan or facial scan.

"So far, what we've seen and been working with our vendor on is very promising," Cohan said.

What do you think of digital driver's licenses? Is it a good idea? Leave us a comment below and let us know what you think.

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