Asking a user their Drivers License Number on a sign up form

Question

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I already know this is terrible UX for the user but I wanted to get your feedback as I cannot find any examples or data to help build a solid argument against putting this on a sign up form, aside from the obvious best practices of only asking the absolute necessary things to create an account etc.

This idea coming down from up top (management) is, if we ask the user their Drivers License # first on our sign up page we can populate the First Name, Last Name, DOB for them, sounds like a good idea right?...

I personally believe less than 10% of people know their Drivers License # off the top of their head, but cannot find any data to support that.

This just seems highly unconventional. I believe the ONLY sign up form that asks your Drivers License # is when you sign up for Auto Insurance and I can't even verify that... We however are NOT an insurance company and have nothing to do with cars.

Any help/comments/data would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Aside from the fact that I'd have to pull out my wallet to fill this form, it's just plain scary for me to be asked for a driver's license by a website (aside from car dealers / insurance / road administration sites). I just don't have that much trust in every site I visit.

Besides, such forms are spammer's paradise. Generate a random fixed-format string and voila! - you get yourself a realistically-looking accout, no need to fake names and DOBs.

Answer 2

If you are including the drivers license for some authorization and if it is so important then i won't suggest to remove it but if it doesn't have massive significance then don't ask for it Just keep the signup form very delight and simple

Like just 1. full name 2. email 3. password 4. cell phone number

Thats it

These are the essential information and will work for most of the site Further you can ask the user to fill an extra form after signup It will be like an small form that will ask for address or job etc Like they ask in amazon after you buy a product, for the shipping address

So there you can ask for drivers license or anything else

Hope it helps

Answer 3

This idea coming down from up top (management) is, if we ask the user their Drivers License # first on our sign up page we can populate the First Name, Last Name, DOB for them, sounds like a good idea right?...

If management wants to populate the fields reliably, you could use personal id number for that. Not that people are keen to give it to some random form they encountered. Make clear what are the benefits to provide either driver's licence number or personal id number.

To expand the test suggested by DA01 on the question comments, add a form that asks for personal id number and see how willingly managers fill that form instead of the form that asks for their first and last name and date of birth.

This just seems highly unconventional. I believe the ONLY sign up form that asks your Drivers License # is when you sign up for Auto Insurance and I can't even verify that...

Quick check on Finnish insurance company websites show that to buy an insurance for your car you have to provide the car's licence plate number and your personal id number.

Answer 4

Main concern would be: If you dont have a drivers license, then you cant sign up? (based on your site this would be a requirement or not)

I believe if you really need to do that, put an option so the user can choose that they dont have their driver license with them, so they can fill the form manually. If you cant do this, then count the number of people going to registration and not registering. You can then show data of a decrease/increase (most likely decrease) of people since the driver license requirement.

If you do put the option, then based on registration data, you can see how many users actually registered using their drivers license # vs filling the form. "My guess" is that even people who have a drivers license # will choose to fill it manually.

Just remember that this might not reflect well if your site is small and you know the persons that will be registering vs a big website with random people registering. There will be many factors altering the results if your site is small like:

• All management purposely entering their driver license
• People in your job forced to put their driver license #
• If site has small registration and is by invitation only, emails will make it clear that they need to provide their driver license. (you would be surprised to know that most of the time people will follow instructions on emails)

I used to be in charge of registering people in an old job I had, whatever you said to them before registering they would follow it, specially instructions on emails.

Again, if your site is big and has random people registering, data will show that people dont like providing personal information.

What I have learned is that management doesn't care about random studies, they care more about their business, so you will have to provide your own data if you want to make your points valid.