PASS vs. ICONLOOP for Drivers Licenses

General Discussion
#1

I’m not sure where to ask about this because ICONLOOP doesn’t have any official comms channel with the public, so I figured this forum would be okay.

Back in August, we heard about PASS – a drivers license replacement from another DID Alliance led by SK Telecom. Can anyone on the ICON team provide some information on how the recently announced ICONLOOP drivers license differs from PASS?

Specifically…

  1. I’m not sure how drivers license works in SK, but in most other countries, they’re issued by a single party. Why is there a need for PASS and ICONLOOP to both be working on drivers licenses?
  2. Did the PASS project “fail”, causing the government to assign the project to ICONLOOP?

I’m working on a new blog post highlighting some of these real world blockchain use cases, and it’s impossible to find a lot of information about this topic. I’d appreciate it if someone on the ICON team could respond or possibly refer me to someone from ICONLOOP that is more in the know about these things.

Thank you.

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#2

Great question. I have been asked the same question (as a community mod) a few times now.

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#3

Hey Brian,

I heard back from the ICONLOOP team.

There is a government entity called the Ministry of Science and ICT - they are the government entity in charge of driver’s licenses. Both PASS and ICONLOOP entered a regulatory sandbox from the Ministry of Science and ICT - similar in concept to the regulatory sandbox that MyID received from Korea FSS.

Like other types of licenses (i.e. liquor license, banking license, money transmitter license, etc.) multiple different entities can receive the same license. I’m not talking about driver’s licenses here, I’m talking about a license to work on a digital driver’s license. Just as a banking license gives you government permission to operate a bank, entry into this regulatory sandbox gives you permission to work on a digital driver’s license. It’s not easy to get into this sandbox from my understanding.

This is my understanding of what I heard back from ICONLOOP, I hope this helps.

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