{"id":71413,"date":"2025-06-06T15:31:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T19:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/?p=71413"},"modified":"2025-06-06T15:31:29","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T19:31:29","slug":"utah-doesnt-issue-identities-anymore-it-endorses-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/utah-doesnt-issue-identities-anymore-it-endorses-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Utah doesn’t issue identities anymore \u2014 it ‘endorses’ them"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A new law in Utah makes a unique distinction in how the state treats identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Signed into law last March, SB 260<\/a> creates several new protections for residents, including that \u201cthe state does not establish an individual\u2019s identity,\u201d but rather that, in some instances, it \u201cendorses\u201d it. Or in the words of Alan Fuller, Utah\u2019s chief information officer: \u201cThe government doesn\u2019t give you your identity \u2014 your parents do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fuller said the new law is a key piece of the state\u2019s work to develop mobile driver\u2019s licenses and digital identity cards that prioritize individuals\u2019 rights. As in more than a dozen other states, Utah offers a mobile driver\u2019s license, and has for several years, but Fuller admitted it\u2019s rather basic. Though Utah\u2019s has some features, like the ability to selectively reveal information, it\u2019s essentially just a picture of a license, he conceded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new state law was needed to tee up further identity work in Utah. Fuller said the state needs to create mobile driver\u2019s licenses and digital identities that have a more comprehensive feature set, like the ability to verify identity online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re glad we did our mobile driver\u2019s license,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a great first step, but now we realize we need to build on that and build a more robust digital identity that could be used in a number of different cases.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though states also offer regular identity cards, the driver\u2019s license is in many cases the de facto identity document. Fuller said he wants to decouple the two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really an accident of history that the driver\u2019s license in every state has become the primary form of identity credential and we\u2019d really like to separate that so you have an identity credential, regardless of whether you\u2019re a driver or not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Utah is also interested in legislating online protections for minors, and is among the states to have mandated<\/a>, in 2023, that adult websites take additional steps to ensure they only serve their content to adults. Utah’s law doesn’t explicate just how adult websites should verify users\u2019 ages, but online age verification usually amounts to the honor system, which is not very effective. Fuller said he wants the state to issue digital identities to minors that could aid in such verifications, but that would also fill a need in the analog world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need a digital identity credential for minors,\u201d he said. \u201cFor example, when someone goes to kindergarten, usually now the parents have to go get a birth certificate to say \u2018I am the guardian of this child.\u2019 Wouldn\u2019t it be great if they already had a digital credential issued by the state that says this is who the child is and this is who the guardian is?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick Doty, a senior technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a digital rights nonprofit, said he hadn\u2019t heard of any other states making the legal distinction that Utah has. It\u2019s \u201csignificant,\u201d he said, because the government\u2019s control of identity bears risks to privacy and free expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doty said that while Utah\u2019s new ID law offers needed legislative protections, the full suite of protections his organization advocates for will require participation in several domains, including private industry, standards organizations and state governments.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not optimistic about good federal policy on this at the moment,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s also not just a state issue. There are going to be international technical standards that apply so you can use your identity in different places. And clearly there are going to be states that are issuing digital identities and providing hopefully some protections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doty said there\u2019s a lot of conversation right now among groups like the World Wide Web Consortium and the International Organization for Standardization on how to appropriately issue mobile driver\u2019s licenses and how they should be used online. Among the issues is whether a popular ISO standard for mobile driver\u2019s license should include a requirement that allows the credential to surveil users<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut there are many more technical protections that are relevant,\u201d Doty said. \u201cLike protections against tracking across websites. We\u2019re not just concerned about whether your government will find out where you\u2019re using your ID, but if you try to prove your age to multiple websites, are those websites going to be able to track you together?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new law in Utah makes a unique distinction about the state’s relationship to the identities of its residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":71415,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable_grayscale_images":true,"grayscale_contrast":0,"sponsored_content":false,"display_author_bio":true,"story_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4677],"tags":[181,251,372,1408,5858,15402,17935,24073,24875],"people":[],"special-report":[],"authors":[4696],"class_list":["post-71413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state","tag-utah","tag-privacy","tag-surveillance","tag-mobile-drivers-license","tag-digital-id","tag-alan-fuller","tag-chief-information-officer","tag-identity","tag-mobile-id","author-colin-wood"],"yoast_head":"\nUtah 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