That paper also discussed using the PDF417 barcodes before they were regulated by AAMVA. We covered those concepts in an earlier white paper on Capturing Customer Information from Driver’s Licenses, so we won’t repeat them here. Since Driver’s Licenses are so broadly accepted as forms of identification, there are a wealth of opportunities for reading the information from them.

This tutorial will introduce you to the classes and methods for both reading and writing AAMVA-compliant barcodes from Driver’s Licenses.

These barcodes are small, error resistant, and can encode a lot of information. Thankfully, new driver’s licenses also have PDF417 barcodes on them, and in North America, follow specifications laid out by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA). The unfortunate side-effect from that positive change is that traditional recognition algorithms are more difficult with the many colors, backgrounds, holograms, and layouts. Many governing bodies have made significant strides towards making forgery more difficult. If you’ve renewed your driver’s license any time in the last few years, you have likely noticed an increase in its visual complexity.