So continue to use a physical licence instead. Most are credit card size so they're not inconvenient to carry.

At present, governments and banks are freeloaders piggybacking on the popularity of the smartphone. If these entities end up mandating access to their services via this route (or making them nigh on impossible to access by other more traditional means) then users should demand they be issued with phones specifically for the purpose, as owning a phone is not prerequisite or mandated requirement to live in society—although if trends continue it likely will be.

Moreover, as phone technology easily lends itself to location tracking any mandatory requirement for phone vehicle licences would soon lead to mandatory location tracking (and easy to implement and impossible to disable with government/bank-issued phones).

That's the logical endgame, and it'd be showdown time. The question is does the citizenry have the guts and resilience to resist such authoritarian impositions.

Frankly, I'm horrified at how easily users of these essential services have been bought off by online conveniences, they've not only become careless and blasé but by default they've also conceded to the withdrawing—and in many cases—actual withdrawal of traditional services in favour of ones that both governments and banks have more control over—and in the bargain they've chucked privacy to the wind.

Many drivers already install those apps

https://www.usnews.com/insurance/auto/how-do-those-car-insur...

Only a question of time until it becomes mandatory