In 2005, the REAL ID act introduced the requirement for travelers on domestic flights to have identification conforming to a new set of standards. It requires a machine-readable copy of the holder's personally identifiable information making it possible
to scan and quickly verify its validity. Enforcement of those standards begins in May 2023 and once REAL ID becomes standard practice at airports and federal facilities, demand will begin to spread to other areas rapidly.
Getting Ahead of the Wave
From the airport to shops, bars, clubs, factories, and office buildings, there will be a growing need for organizations to handle digital IDs in an efficient yet secure manner. With the clock ticking on REAL ID enforcement, the need to handle machine-readable
digital ID's will likely catch many unprepared. And application developers working on digital ID integration today will be first in line to provide solutions that will address the expected explosion of demand tomorrow.
Developers who integrate Socket Mobile's CaptureSDK platform into their apps have a key advantage in the digital ID space: CaptureSDK requires absolutely no hardware buy-in or expensive licensing to get started. Developers can easily add digital ID integration to their app and be ahead of the game when consumers need a secure place to store their digital identities. Our software development kit can be downloaded absolutely free of charge and, thanks to our SocketCam C820 mobile scanning tool, can immediately begin capturing 1D and 2D barcode-encoded data using the camera on any current smartphone or tablet.
Moving Away from the Average Identification Card
As digital IDs continue to evolve, many forms of ID are likely
to move away from today's visible barcodes to radio-frequency identification (RFID), or near-field communication (NFC) tags integrated into the device itself. This is already required under the US Department of Homeland Security's Enhanced Driver's
License program. It's likely that this evolution will see the elimination of physical cards altogether in favor of a truly digital ID stored securely on a mobile device.
Here, too, the developer building on the CaptureSDK has an advantage to offer their clients. Any CaptureSDK application can be extended to make use of our wide range of powerful hardware data capture products, from high-performance barcode scanners
to RFID and digital ID-compatible NFC readers, without the need to rewrite the application. With CaptureSDK, the transition from barcode-enhanced ID scanning to NFC, RFID, and true digital IDs will be seamless, massively cutting down on the training
and overhead that could otherwise overshadow the advantages digital ID brings.
Although digital ID technology isn't new - Mexico was the first nation to begin issuing mobile driver's licenses (mDLs) in 2007 - the REAL ID Act in the United States has set a countdown for the broadest deployment of the technology yet, creating
a market bursting with opportunity. For those who capitalize on that opportunity, interest is guaranteed. Anyone who ignores the signs and continues to handle IDs manually does so at their own risk.
Place yourself at the forefront of what promises to be an exciting sea-change in how we prove and process our identification and download the CaptureSDK and SocketCam C820 today.
We've got you covered for everything from international travel to settling down with a six-pack of beer at the end of a long week.