Residents of Iowa will be able to download an app on their smartphones containing their official driver’s license in the coming months that could aid in ridding of plastic driver’s licenses all together. The Iowa Department of Transportation plans to pilot the app in 2015 for no additional cost to users.

Although the app will be convenient for Iowans, it comes with several risks. As a result, the Department of Transportation will include features that will protect each person’s privacy and confirm the authenticity of each license, according to a report by Engadget.

Paul Trombino, Iowa’s Department of Transportation director, says that the initial protection for the app will be a pin number. For further protection, the app may add facial or finger recognition capabilities. Authorities checking the licenses, such as policemen or alcohol vendors, should be able to determine a license’s authenticity based on whether or not the license rotates to display the owner’s profiles. These officers, along with the TSA, will have to be educated on how to recognize the licences.

Mark Lowe, director of the Iowa Department of Transportation Motor Vehicles Division, expects digital licenses will be used more and more in the future. Lowe told the Washington Post that the license is “really moving beyond a static thing.” Lowe added that the idea of the app goes beyond just showing the license. It is intended to have the ability to send push notifications regarding traffic or if a person’s license is about to expire. Lowe stated that he does not know of any other state putting a similar program in place and that Iowa may be the “first in the nation” to have digital licenses.

In the next six months, frequent travelers working for the state will test out the app. From there, the Department of Transportation will decide what options they will give to Iowans, including the opportunity to use the app while waiting for a license to arrive in the mail.

The digital license can completely take the place of a plastic license, but people can continue to use their plastic licenses if they choose. Some are worried that showing authorities a license on a smartphone may give them the right to search the phone or that it is one more thing to deactivate if the device ends up in the hands of someone else.

According to the Des Moines Register, Iowa is already one of more than 30 other states that allow drivers to show a digital form of insurance when at a traffic stop. Trombino says that it is natural for Iowa to develop a mobile driver’s license since Iowans are becoming accustomed to depending on their smartphones for daily business.

The development of a mobile driver’s license app is not the only way Iowa’s DOT has worked to expand technology. They have already started expanding a program for “paperless construction projects” and installed cameras on snowplows.  Driver’s license kiosk locations have also expanded in Iowa, according to the Des Moines Register.

Gov. Terry Branstad marveled at the DOT’s mobile license plans in a budget hearing on Monday.  He even noted that children in Iowa are working on digital development programs.