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Iowa Driver's License Goes Virtual

Joyce Russell/IPR
Iowa Department of Transportation director Paul Trombino explains the state's new digital driver's licesnes, which will be available next year.

Iowa motorists will soon be able to show identification by pulling out a cellphone.

The Iowa Department of Transportation plans to roll out a new digitally-encoded license sometime next year. The new virtual license will be available free of charge in addition to the hard copy motorists carry in their wallets.  

DOT Director Paul Trombino says the digital licenses can be used at a traffic stop, the airport, or anywhere identification is needed.   

“It opens up the doorway for a lot of transactions,” Trombino says.  

The new application works by reading the digital encoding that’s already in the hard copy of your license.

“It has more digital encoding than the one in your wallet,” Trombino says.

Trombino says motorists can already show proof of insurance with a phone app. The director presented a mockup of the new license to Governor Branstad and his aides at today's DOT’s budget hearing.