Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) spokesperson Murray Hillan told ZDNet Australia that it was currently assessing whether smartcard technologies were suitable for Australian driver's licences.
The US is reportedly looking at introducing biometrics for its driver's licences, but that's not an option in Australia, according to Hillan.
-Those kinds of technologies are somewhat invasive and have the potential to impinge on the privacy rights of individuals,- Hillan said. -From our point of view they're not entirely suitable for what we need."
Hillan said the RTA was looking at smartcard technology, because it would make the driver's licence more secure from issues such as counterfeiting.
-We're just looking at what's been achieved overseas and seeing if its applicable to our situation," he said.
-We want to thoroughly check out the potential applications and the reliability of the technology--to see it will do what we want it to do."
Following assessment of the technology itself, Hillan said the RTA would also need to look at any legal and legislative ramifications of changing to use smartcards.
Smart? Australia still hasn't got *one* drivers license for the country. Instead we have massive duplication of effort at each state, and enormous rorts with drivers holding multiple licenses.
Try fixing the business before applying technology tricks.