Thales has announced it has been selected by Service Oklahoma to deliver the state’s newly redesigned driver licenses and ID cards, which went into production on February 17, 2026 as part of a broader overhaul of Oklahoma’s credentialing infrastructure.
The new credentials are manufactured from 100 percent polycarbonate, a material chosen for its resistance to cracking, bending, and peeling over time. The design incorporates a laser-engraved, tamper-proof portrait, an animated secondary portrait that shifts appearance based on viewing angle, microprinting that includes the names of all 77 Oklahoma counties, and UV-visible security imagery featuring state symbols including the North American bison, scissortail flycatcher, and redbud tree.
The credentials are available in both REAL ID–compliant and non-compliant versions. Existing Oklahoma credentials remain valid until their expiration dates; the new design is issued at no additional cost upon renewal or replacement.
The launch coincided with Service Oklahoma’s deployment of a new unified driver license and motor vehicle platform, which consolidated services previously managed across separate systems. The agency reported more than 38,000 transactions on the first day of operation and said standard in-person transactions that previously took 20 minutes or more are now completed in under 10 minutes. The new Navigate platform replaced OkCARS as the single online entry point for driver license and motor vehicle services.
Thales’s role in the project was established as part of a 2024 selection in which both Thales and IDEMIA were named as vendors for card printing and system hardware. The polycarbonate card format is consistent with Thales’s broader push into secure physical credential programs globally, including its work on EU digital identity wallet infrastructure and its position as a top-ranked vendor in Juniper Research’s digital identity evaluation.
Oklahoma’s credential modernization comes as REAL ID enforcement for domestic air travel became mandatory in May 2025, adding urgency to state-level credential upgrade programs across the United States.
Sources: Thales, Service Oklahoma
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By Ji-seo Kim
