Heciel Nieves Bonilla, News Editor
VCU’s Stuart C. Siegel Center — known by Ram Nation as “the Stu” — now accepts Virginia Mobile ID, a digital version of state identification, as a faster method of getting through an ID check. It is the first event venue in the state to do so.
The change was announced at the stadium on Feb. 5 in a press conference hosted by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. It is now in effect for future events.
VCU started offering up the Siegel Center as a venue last year to help pay student athletes, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported last year. At roughly 200,000 square feet it becomes Richmond’s largest indoor venue.
Virginia Mobile ID was launched as an iOS and Android app in November as a way to use a digital copy of either a Virginia driver’s license or state-issued identification card to process ID checks at airports, police stations, DMVs, ABC stores and other locations.
The DMV’s website calls mobile ID “a companion to your physical ID” and notes that users must still carry their physical ID on their person to use it.
Mobile ID is already accepted at multiple Richmond-area locations, including nine ABC stores and the Richmond International Airport — though some every-day establishments such as certain local bars do not accept the service yet.
Some commentators, including ACLU senior policy analyst Jay Stanley, have warned the establishment of digital state ID programs brings a greater risk of identity and data theft, the expansion of surveillance and the quickening of the process of locking the user experience online behind ID checks.
At least 21 U.S. states and territories currently accept some form of mobile ID, according to the United States Transportation Security Administration.
New Jersey and Utah are the only two states with mobile ID that have also signed laws aimed at reducing related privacy risks, according to the ACLU.