Canberrans can store their banking cards and COVID-19 vaccination certificates on their smartphones for easy access, but they will have to wait a few more years before they can add their driver's licences to their digital wallets.
Across the border in NSW, nearly 4 million drivers have taken up digital driver's licences since the state introduced the option via its Service NSW app in 2019.
Drivers in South Australia have been able to use digital driver's licences since 2017 and in Queensland, trials are underway with plans to roll digital driver's licences out across the state next year.
So, with millions of Australians already using digital driver's licences, why is a similar system still years away in the ACT?
Unlike the Check-in CBR app, which was developed in the territory and led the way nationally when it came to COVID-19 contact tracing, the ACT is taking a "wait and see" approach to digital licences.
ACT chief digital officer Betinna Konti said a "national agreement" to ensure consistency across the different states and territories was needed before the territory would invest.
"At a national level, we need to agree on standards and interoperability of driver's licences, and this will drive the technology solutions that we need to invest in," she said.
"Of the states that have invested in digital driver's licences, they are different solutions currently and they don't interoperate.
'Significant acceptance issues'
While NSW and SA digital driver's licences are technically accepted across the country, Service NSW and mySA GOV still advise drivers to carry their plastic cards with them when travelling interstate or overseas.
Ms Konti said ACT police, for example, were currently unable to read digital licences from NSW.
"There are reasonably significant acceptance issues with the digital driver's licences within NSW also," she said.
Acting Sergeant Andrew McKellar from ACT Road Policing confirmed officers did not currently have the facilities to instantly check digital licences from other states, so they turned to other systems to ensure the licence's validity.
"We would check the Road Transport Authority databases to verify that what's been presented is valid because digital images can be manipulated or falsified," he said.
In South Australia, there have also been issues with some businesses refusing to accept digital licenses as a form of identity.
"We've heard from our partner states who've invested in digital driver's licences to date, that acceptance of that as a form of identity to replace the plastic card, isn't widespread yet," Ms Konti said.
Are the licences secure?
When it comes to security, some cyber experts say digital driver's licences could help prevent identity theft, although mySA GOV accounts were hacked last year.
"We need to make sure that the integrity of the digital licence can be accepted and not tampered with in the same way as a plastic card is today," Ms Konti said.
But a spokeswoman from Service NSW said the digital licence was secure.
"The Digital Driver Licence contains multiple security features, including a rotating QR code and NSW Waratah hologram to assist NSW Police and other licence-checkers to validate the licence and help reduce the risk of fraud," the spokeswoman said.
"As of March 28, 2022, almost 4 million drivers have downloaded their Digital Driver Licence, which represents 68 per cent of the 5.7 million licence holders in NSW.
But Service NSW said there were "no plans" to phase out the plastic card licence, which are still issued to all licence holders.
Drivers must keep their phones charged
The executive director of Digital Services within Service NSW, Katie McDermott, said with digital licences came other considerations.
"We put it in legislation that the customer must have their phones fully charged to be able to use Digital Driver Licence," she said.
Ms McDermott said while there were "challenges" to rolling out digital licences across Australia, NSW had offered the "plumbing" of their system to other states and territories.
"Absolutely, we would love to be able to make our [system] available across other states," she said.
"We did speak with the ACT some time ago ... but there is a lot of work to be done across legislative reform and working with police officers and pubs and clubs, so it's much greater than just the ICT."
Ms Konti expected it would be "two to three" years before the ACT was ready to roll out digital driver's licences.
"As a small jurisdiction, we want to make sure that we invest once and avoid potential costs of reworking in solutions," she said.
But Acting Sergeant McKellar said a digital system like NSW's could work well in the ACT.
"That is something for the ACT government, but I imagine if we adopted a similar system to New South Wales, it would probably work well here in the ACT as well," he said.
