Be sure to save your scanned image as a JPEG (I tried TIFF and it didn’t work). The benefit is that the information in the barcode cannot be changed, and creating a false one necessitates knowing exactly how each state encodes the data. It took me about 5 minutes from scan to decode, and worked on a Mac (it’s a Java application). The main issue with the barcode on your driver’s license is that the information in the code is not organized in the same manner in every state. The PDF417 format for the barcode used in Prince Edward Island is used many other places too, so if you live elsewhere you may be able to do this just as easily. In there I see information like my name and eye colour that the Toolkit doesn’t parse. There’s actually more information in there, which you only see if you look at the “raw bytes” tab in the Toolkit application this Pennsylvania document can be of assistance in understanding what the fields mean. For me, the “processed” version of the results came out like this: This document provides a standard for the design of driver licenses (DL) and identification (ID) cards issued by AAMVA member jurisdictions. Thanks to The SWIPE Toolkit it’s easy to find out what information is encoded in that barcode. If you have a new Prince Edward Island driver license - the crazy all-digital ones with the tiny numbers beside each field - flip it over and you’ll see a barcode.
