Motorists in Shanghai can now apply for digital driving licenses.

Starting from yesterday, residents can apply for the digital licenses through the “Jiaoguan 12123” app, the official service app of the national traffic police, and the digital permits have the same legal status as the paper ones and are valid across the Chinese mainland, local police said.

The digital license contains data from the paper version, with real-time updates of deducted points of the license holders due to traffic offenses.

People can either use photos in the traffic police database or upload pictures of themselves from their mobile phones. The pictures will be verified by police, and if they’re valid, the applicants will get their digital licenses within one workday.

People whose driving licenses have expired or are invalid won’t be able to apply for the digital version.

The digital licenses are secured by digital signature technology and it is very difficult, or nearly impossible, to counterfeit or manually modify them, police noted.

When stopped for a check of their driving licenses, motorists with digital ones don’t need to show their paper licenses as the police will be able to verify the authenticity of the digital version with their hand-held devices, according to police.

The digital licenses can also be used while applying for various administrative services from the traffic police and settling issues related to traffic offenses or accidents. However, if police decided to have a temporary seizing of the offenders’ driving licenses, the paper version has to be submitted.

People can also use the digital licenses to file insurance claims, rent cars to apply for driving jobs, police said.

Those who have changed the class of automobiles they’re allowed to drive, renewed their licenses or got new licenses issued in another city need to apply for the digital ones again.

People who have problems applying for the digital licenses through the app can apply at the vehicle management service centers of the traffic police where they got their paper licenses issued.

Including Shanghai, 28 cities around China began allowing digital driving license applications from Wednesday.

This follows a digital driving license trial earlier this year in Tianjin City; Chengdu, Sichuan Province; and Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, where more than 2 million motorists have applied for the digital permits so far.

By 2022, all motorists in China will be entitled to the service.

Shanghai traffic police started their local trial of digital driving licenses back in 2019. The following year, Shanghai and three provinces in the Yangtze River Delta region enabled mutual recognition of digital driving licenses.

Rachel Yan, a motorist in Shanghai, has been a user of digital driving license in the city and applied for the new national one on the first day yesterday. “It will be more convenient to drive in other parts of the country, and I think the new digital license is highly secure,” she stated.