Licensed North Carolina drivers may not need to carry their laminated license for much longer.

A wide-ranging proposal to update the state’s transportation laws would allow the state Division of Motor Vehicles to issue digital driver’s licenses that could be displayed on a mobile device.

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The DMV has been advocating for digital licenses for a couple years, Wayne Goodwin, North Carolina’s DMV commissioner, told WRAL News. The department hopes legislators will take up the idea this summer after not discussing it last year.

Goodwin believes the state needs to prioritize modernization at the DMV because digital licenses are more secure than the laminated cards that drivers carry in their wallets.

A handful of states have either implemented digital licenses or are studying them. Goodwin said he’s seen digital licenses that allow drivers to more easily control the amount of personal information they share in a given situation. A bartender, for example, might need to only see your date of birth — not your address.

“You can determine: I only want to verify my date of birth, verify my address, or verify my full name or verify that I'm over age 21,” Goodwin said. “You decide what you want to share.”

Physical IDs can also be easily lost, stolen, damaged, contain outdated information and can be easily replicated by counterfeiters, according to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.

Mobile IDs could also allow people to update license information without waiting in line at a DMV office. That could help fast-growing North Carolina avoid backlogs such as the one affecting thousands of people waiting for new physical driver's licenses and identification cards.

Offering digital licenses “will put us in line with other states, who over the course of the last several years have already leapfrogged over North Carolina,” said Goodwin, who is scheduled to go before state lawmakers on Thursday to discuss the state's delay in issuing new physical licenses.

The bill received preliminary approval from the state Senate’s Transportation Committee Wednesday afternoon. The committee sent House Bill 199 — a proposal that calls for dozens of updates to North Carolina’s transportation laws — to the state Senate’s Judiciary Committee for further review.

In addition to allowing digital drivers licenses, the bill would also:

  • Cancel the requirement that license plates be replaced every seven years.
    • Extend the duration of temporary registration plates from 30 to 60 days.
      • Require the DMV to implement a print-on-demand system for issuance of temporary registration plates.
        • Increase the penalty for violations involving a temporary registration plate from Class 3 misdemeanors to Class 1 felonies.
          • Require the DMV to study using alternative materials for registration plates.
            • Raise the DMV processing fee for out-of-state drivers from $10 to $20.
              • Raise the fee for printing certain registration and insurance records from $1 to $5.