- Travel & Transport
Check a customer's driving licence and entitlements from their phone, before they collect the keys.
Car hire firms, insurers and fleet operators check driving licences every day, mostly by looking at a plastic card. As licences move into digital wallets, those checks can confirm the licence, its categories and its validity directly with the issuing authority's signature.
The challenge for businesses that check licences
A plastic photocard shows who the holder is and which vehicles they may drive, but staff cannot tell from the card whether it has since been revoked, or whether the holder has been disqualified. Rental desks photocopy the card and fleet managers keep spreadsheets of expiry dates. In the UK, hire firms ask drivers to create a DVLA check code, valid for 21 days, so they can view the driving record online.
A digital driving licence is issued and signed by the licensing authority. A business can request just the attributes it needs, verify the signature and validity status, and keep a log of the check as its record.
Where verification is needed
- Car and van hire: confirming the licence and vehicle categories at booking and at collection
- Car sharing and subscriptions: verifying drivers in the app before the first trip
- Motor insurance: confirming licence details when a policy is quoted or a named driver is added
- Fleet and employer checks: confirming staff who drive for work hold the right entitlement
- Age and identity checks: using the licence as proof of age or identity where it is accepted
What Vidos does
- Vidos Authorizer requests the licence from the wallet over OpenID4VP or ISO/IEC 18013-7, with a QR code the customer scans online or at the counter
- Vidos Verifier checks the mDL signature against the issuing authority's certificate, using a Verifiable Issuer CA List (VICAL)
- Vidos Validator applies your rules, such as a minimum age or a required vehicle category
- Selective disclosure keeps the request to the attributes you need, such as driving privileges and expiry date
- Each verification is logged, so the audit trail holds the result of the check and no image of the card
Regulatory context
The EU Driving Licence Directive (EU) 2025/2205 entered into force on 25 November 2025. It introduces a mobile driving licence issued to the European Digital Identity Wallet, keeps the physical card available on request, and requires Member States to apply most of the new rules from 26 November 2029. Under Article 5f(2) of the eIDAS Regulation, as amended by Regulation (EU) 2024/1183, transport providers that must use strong user authentication have to accept the wallet at the customer's request by 24 December 2027.
In the UK, GOV.UK Wallet currently holds the HM Armed Forces Veteran Card, and the government has said the driving licence will follow. The European Commission's mobile driving licence manual describes car rental and roadside checks using ISO/IEC 18013-5 and 18013-7.
Ready to get started?
Explore the verification infrastructure that organisations across Europe are using to accept digital credentials.