The new licenses allowed people to use their mobile phone to prove identity and age during roadside police checks or at bars, stores, hotels, and other venues. ServiceNSW promised it would "provide additional levels of security and protection against identity fraud, compared to the plastic driver's license citizens had used for decades.

Now, 30 months later, security researchers have shown that it's trivial for just about anyone to forge fake identities using the digital driver's licenses, or DDLs.

The technique allows people under drinking age to change their date of birth and for fraudsters to forge fake identities. The process takes an hour, doesn't require any special hardware or expensive software, and will generate fake IDs that pass inspection using the electronic verification system used by police and participating venues.

Noah Farmer, the researcher who identified the flaws, wrote in a post published last week that the Digital Driver's Licence did not arrive with a more secure design or provide additional levels of security.

We guess the government just thought if it said it did, people would believe them.