By PYMNTS | October 23, 2026
Your phone can already hold your credit cards, your boarding pass and your insurance card. In a growing number of states, it can hold your driver’s license, too. Now, state leaders are asking a bigger question. Should residents have one digital identity that works across every government service?
More states are leaning toward yes, according to a report from Route Fifty. State technology chiefs who spoke at a recent national conference in San Diego said a single, statewide approach to digital identity is gaining ground. The goal is to give residents one easy way in, rather than a different login for every agency.
Mobile driver’s licenses or other digital IDs are now available in 22 states and Puerto Rico. A report from the group representing state technology leaders found that just over half of states run their digital identity programs from one central office. The federal government is moving in a similar direction. This summer, the White House budget office named Login.gov as the standard way for people to sign in to federal services online.
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Washington state’s technology chief, Bill Kehoe, explained why the issue carries so much weight. “If we don’t get it right, we’re going to have a lot of problems,” he said.
Leaders gave a practical reason for the shift. When each agency builds its own system, costs pile up across state government. Ohio has spent several years building a shared platform so residents can use one identity across many programs. Washington is following a similar path. Last year, Gov. Bob Ferguson ordered the state to expand its main resident website over four years and create one identity residents can use statewide.
Not every state is going all in. New York uses a mixed model. The state’s central tech office sets the security and ease-of-use standards and gives agencies a ready-made tool to plug in. Agencies keep some freedom in how they use it. Nearly 4 in 10 states reported using this kind of shared approach.
Getting these systems off the ground is still a struggle. Seven in 10 state tech leaders said they lack the money to build them. Almost as many pointed to pushback from inside their own agencies. Kehoe said some departments still want to do things their own way. Changing that habit, he said, means getting staff to focus on residents instead of their own agency’s needs.
So what comes next? Experts expect states to build these systems slowly, one piece at a time. Vitaliy Panych, a former security chief for California, said his state started small. It first used a shared identity check for one task: letting residents ask businesses to limit how their personal data is used. Those same tools can later be reused for other services.
That step-by-step approach may become the norm. States face tight budgets and slow adoption. Starting with one clear use and expanding over time lets them prove the idea works before spending more.
For residents, the payoff could be simple. Instead of juggling separate accounts to renew a license, apply for benefits or file a request, they may soon use one secure login for all of it. Washington’s plan alone stretches over four years, so the full shift will take time. But the direction is clear. States want government to feel like one front door, not a maze of separate offices.