From DMV to Wallet: Understanding Verifiable Digital Credential Issuance

This blog post explains how verifiable digital credentials—particularly mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs)—are issued, the identity-proofing and lifecycle-management steps involved, and the standards and initiatives (ISO, NIST, OpenID4VCI, AAMVA, FIDO) aimed at improving trust and interoperability across issuers and wallets. It highlights challenges from varied state practices, the need for issuance metadata and wallet certification, and how these practices can extend beyond government IDs into other high-assurance sectors.