Digital driving license should come this year
The smartphone is set to become even more important when dealing with authorities in the future. You can already sign digitally with your mobile phone signature – and do your tax assessment via FinanzOnline, for example. The next big step is the introduction of driver’s licenses on smartphones.
Driving license on the mobile phone as an additional product
The state secretary responsible for digitization is to become digital this year, stressed on Tuesday at the symposium for electronic administration in the Salzburg Congress Center: “As the federal government, we have set ourselves the goal of making all the ID cards that I offered in my wallet today, in the future bring to cell phone. Now the E-ID has started, this is the continuation of the mobile phone signature. And before the end of this year we will be able to offer the digital driver’s license. So anyone who has a credit card driver’s license can then also have their driver’s license on their cell phone and use it like a first digital ID card,” says State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Florian Tursky (ÖVP).
Pandemic causes digitization push
In the past two and a half years, the pandemic has caused a real boost in digitization at the offices – the experts at the conference agree on this: “In the pandemic we have several effects that have brought an incredible boost. Firstly, the pandemic has distinguished itself by not allowing us to meet each other. That means digitization had to be the solution. And secondly, it was actually the case that we had a very broad group of users who depended on digital offers working,” says the digital chief strategist of the City of Vienna, Klemens Himpele.
Official channels via mobile phone – problems reading
But when more and more official channels are best dealt with via smartphone or computer, this is a problem for many people. 15 out of 100 Austrians have problems reading and writing – the increasing digitization in many areas of life is causing them problems: “They are of course supported by local support and are largely excluded if everything only works online. The important thing is that there are still people there who I can tell what I’m about. People who support you in filling out the forms and simply help,” says Gerhild Sallaberger from the basic education center abc Salzburg.
Senior Advisory Board: Online offers exclude older people
Very similar demands also come from senior citizens’ representatives – many older people would be excluded if only online offers were available, warns the chairwoman of the Salzburg Senior Citizens’ Advisory Council Andrea Eder-Gitschthaler (ÖVP): “Seniors are self-employed and I want to be able to manage their lives independently. And that would be a barrier for us too
age discrimination. That’s why we want to raise awareness and say
there must be both ways – digital and analogue.”
Offices: Personal advice continues
In Salzburg, they want to continue to maintain the possibility of personal contact through official channels: “The state, the municipalities and other service points can help together to bring digitization closer to the citizens who do not have the opportunity for it in their own households have,” says Deputy Governor Christian Stöckl (ÖVP). Nevertheless – the way towards the digital office has already been initiated.