Louisiana Colleges Can Now Put Student IDs in LA Wallet. What Else Comes With a Digital Student ID?

How many cards that used to live in your wallet now live on your phone?

SB353 adds one more to Louisiana's list. Each public college and university management board may now offer student ID cards as a digital credential in LA Wallet, the state's digital identity app.

The law is permissive. A board "may" offer the digital student ID, and nothing in the bill requires a campus to offer it. A student who gets one pays nothing.

The law adds one more rule: a biometric identification platform may not charge any fee or payment for its use to any student, university, retail establishment, partnership, corporation, or business.

The fee ban assumes a biometric identification platform is part of the system. The bill never says what that platform is, what biometric data it collects, where the data is stored, or who can see it. It regulates the price of the platform and is silent on the data.

That silence matters because of where the credential lives. LA Wallet already carries Louisiana's digital driver's license. Every credential added to a state-run digital wallet makes it a more complete identity system, one convenience at a time. A student ID is a small addition, and it moves in that direction.

IPS rates SB353 as MONITOR. IPS does not oppose an optional, free campus convenience. The questions to watch are how many credential types LA Wallet collects, whether the physical student ID stays available, and how any biometric feature handles student data.

Sen. Larry Selders (D) sponsored SB353. It passed the Senate 32-0 and the House 96-0, and the Senate agreed to the House amendments 35-0. Governor Jeff Landry signed it June 2, 2026, as Act 760. It took effect August 1, 2026.

Free is a good price for a student. The law still does not say what a biometric platform may do with a student's biometric data.

This is our read of the law. We encourage you to read it yourself and reach your own conclusions.