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Updates 2026

Draft NIST Guidelines on Implementing Mobile Driver’s Licenses for Financial Institutions
March 18, 2026

The NIST NCCoE has published the draft NIST Special Publication (SP) 1800-42A, Digital Identities - Mobile Driver’s License (mDL): Accelerating Development and Adoption of Digital Identity for Financial Institutions. This practice guide provides financial institutions and other organizations with practical guidelines on implementing mDLs for customer identity verification using existing technology, standards, and best practices.

Background

Compared to physical driver’s licenses, mDLs are designed for secure digital transactions, and can provide protection against fraud, identity theft, and unauthorized access. 

The NCCoE is collaborating with 29 industry and government partners to address security, privacy, and interoperability challenges associated with mDL adoption, with an initial focus on the financial sector. The project has developed a secure, standards-based reference architecture for mDLs, demonstrated real-world financial use cases, and produced technical resources to support adoption.

Publication Details

This practice guide complements the resources available on the mDL project supporting resources page, and contains updated content including:

  • An updated reference architecture for implementing mDLs
  • A threat model analyzing security and privacy risks across the mDL threat landscape
  • Usability considerations for mDLs
  • Mapping of relevant regulatory requirements for financial institutions

We Want Your Feedback!

We encourage you to visit our project page to download the practice guide and submit comments. The comment period is open through May 8th, 2026. Your feedback will help improve this guide and support broader adoption of secure, interoperable digital identity technologies.

To stay up to date on this project, join the NCCoE mDL Community of Interest.

Next Steps

Next, the NCCoE will demonstrate the application of mDLs in citizen-to-government identity verification use cases, working with collaborators, like the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Login.gov, to advance secure, efficient digital identity verification.

Created March 18, 2026