As a result, several states (including Colorado, Utah, and Virginia) have passed laws restricting what data businesses can collect from a scanned barcode. The modern best practice is for scanners to read only the birthdate and expiration, ignoring the rest. For now, the PDF417 remains king. But its reign is ending. The AAMVA has been actively promoting the ISO 18013-5 standard for mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs). These digital IDs live on your smartphone and communicate via Bluetooth or NFC, sharing only the data necessary for a transaction (e.g., “Show that I am over 21” without revealing your address).
When a police scanner reads the barcode, it compares the encoded name to the OCR-read name on the front. Mismatch? That’s an automatic arrest. The barcode also contains a digital signature or, in newer licenses, public key infrastructure (PKI) encryption. Without the state’s private key, a forger cannot produce a barcode that a police scanner will trust. For all its security benefits, the PDF417 driver’s license has a dystopian underbelly. Because the barcode contains all your personal data in plaintext (unencrypted in older licenses), anyone with a $30 USB barcode scanner can siphon your identity. pdf417 drivers license
At first glance, it’s an eyesore. A blocky, rectangular patch of black and white hieroglyphics plastered on the back of your driver’s license. Unlike the sleek, minimalist QR codes that advertise craft beer websites, the PDF417 looks like something left over from a 1990s dot-matrix printer. As a result, several states (including Colorado, Utah,
How much information? A standard PDF417 barcode can hold up to 1.1 kilobytes of data. That’s roughly 1,800 characters of text—or the equivalent of a full page of typed, single-spaced information. Your name, address, birthdate, license class, restrictions, organ donor status, and even a compressed thumbnail photo all fit inside that modest grid. In the mid-1990s, the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) faced a problem. Every state issued driver’s licenses, but none of them talked to each other. A cop in Nevada pulling over a driver from Maine had no quick way to verify if that Maine license was real or a forgery. But its reign is ending
But don’t let the aesthetics fool you. That clunky square is the single most important security feature on your ID. It is a fortress of data, a portable database, and the frontline soldier in the war against fake IDs, identity theft, and traffic fraud.