Re: Hello world, meet American driver’s licenses

Went through this blog last night and I loved it.

I want to note that while the discussion is framed around American driver's licenses, the associated risks are equally relevant to the Canadian context. Canada also lacks a national ID system and, by default, uses driver's licenses as a primary form of identification across many services. Going through this list on Wikipedia<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_identity_card_policies_by_country>, it is remarkable how many countries do not have a national ID or equivalent, likely relying on comparable mechanisms.

From a Canadian perspective, while we benefit from stronger federal data privacy laws, such as PIPEDA<https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/privacy-topics/privacy-laws-in-canada/the-personal-information-protection-and-electronic-documents-act-pipeda/>, I don't believe those frameworks fully anticipated use cases like this. This is why I believe even in a framework with good privacy laws, privacy-by-design is imperative. Given the close integration between the US and Canadian systems, privacy implications affecting US citizens are likely to spill over and impact Canadians as well.


Regards,
Mahmoud

________________________________
From: Kim Hamilton <kimdhamilton@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2025 11:22 PM
To: W3C Credentials CG (Public List) <public-credentials@w3.org>
Subject: Hello world, meet American driver’s licenses

Hi all,
I realized we’ve been talking past each other in the mDL discussion, and a large factor is likely different assumptions and use based on where we live. So I wrote a US driver’s license explainer:
http://kimdhamilton.com/american_privacy/

I hope this will help move the discussion forward when we talk about the risks in the US context.
Kim