The three major mobile operators in South Korea teamed with the National Police Agency to develop a digital driver’s licence service which allows users to register their licences on smartphones.

SK Telecom (SKT), KT and LG Uplus are working with the agency to link the service with the Road Traffic Authority’s driver’s licence database and aim to launch in the first quarter of 2020.

The verification service is built into the Pass authentication app, which is currently used to verify mobile financial transactions and has more than 25 million users across the country.

A trial of the new service will run under a Ministry of Science and ICT sandbox programme.

The long-term goal is for the digital IDs to have the same legal status as a physical driver’s licence and be accepted by police as a suitable form of identification.

In a statement, SKT said digital driver’s licences have been introduced as a commercial service and pilot projects in the US and Australia, and are attracting attention as an alternative to a physical driver’s licence.

The companies said they will not store user data, which will only be kept on an individual’s smartphone, and would manage a limited amount of data encrypted using blockchain technology.