Written by: Mitch Madill
Imagine this.
You are a landlord reviewing a rental application. The applicant gives you an Ontario driver’s licence. The name matches the application. The photo looks right. The address is in Ontario. Everything appears legitimate, after all, it is an official government-issued ID.
So, you accept the applicant.
Then months later, something goes wrong. Rent stops coming in. The story starts changing, and documents no longer line up. You realize that the government-issued ID you relied on may not have told you what you believed it did.
For many landlords, an Ontario driver’s licence is viewed as the gold standard of identity verification. It is government-issued with a photo, a name, a date of birth, and an Ontario address. It looks official because it is.
But landlords need to understand something important:
A valid Ontario ID card does not, by itself, prove that a rental applicant is honest, financially reliable, properly screened, or low risk.
The concern comes from the previous process: an Ontario Photo Card could be obtained by an applicant who declared that Ontario is their primary residence and presents acceptable identity documentation, including a foreign passport. This, however, can be done without the type of legal-presence and residency verification that many landlords may assume had already taken place.
Once a person had obtained an Ontario Photo Card, that card could be used as an accepted identity document in the Ontario driver’s licence application process. Ontario’s own driver’s licence information lists the Ontario Photo Card as an accepted identity document for several applicant categories, and the Ontario government also states that a person applying for a driver’s licence must be an Ontario resident and bring original identification showing legal name and date of birth.
In the Ontario government’s technical briefing deck for the Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, 2025, the government acknowledged a gap in the previous system. It stated that holders of Ontario driver’s licences, Ontario Photo Cards and Registrant Identification Numbers were required to be Ontario residents and legally authorized to be in Canada. However, the same briefing deck stated that applicants had to provide a residential address but were “not currently required to verify residency or legal status.”
Bill 60 was introduced to change that. The briefing deck said the proposed changes would update ID requirements to verify an applicant’s full legal name, date of birth, residency, legal presence in Canada and photograph. It also said new applicants for all driver’s licence classes, Ontario Photo Cards and Registrant Identification Numbers would be required to provide residency and legal-presence verification. The government connected the initiative to public safety, fraud prevention, regulatory compliance and concerns about the integrity of the driver’s licensing system.
Why does this matter to landlords?
Small landlords do not have access to government databases or tools to determine how an applicant’s ID was originally issued or verified, yet they must make a high-stakes decision. A landlord may be handing over the keys to a valuable property based on a rental application, a few documents, a credit report, and likely a short meeting. If the tenant turns out to be fraudulent, the landlord may face months of unpaid rent, legal costs, property damage, LTB delays, stress, mortgage pressure and the possibility of being financially wiped out. The concern is not that every driver’s licence is suspicious, but that landlords should not assume the Ontario government-issued ID has done all the verification work for them.
Another issue is whether the government can track how many Ontario Photo Cards were issued using foreign passports and how many of those were later used to obtain Ontario driver’s licences. A SOLO Landlords member, who asked not to be named, inquired about this information from the Ministry of Transportation through an FOI process. According to the correspondence, the response was that such records did not exist, and that the Ministry did not track that information. The member challenged this response because the application forms appear to collect information about the identity documents used at the time of application.
For landlords, this raises a practical question:
If the government cannot easily track which ID documents were used to issue Photo Cards, and whether they were later connected to driver’s licences, how can a landlord be expected to know the history behind the ID presented in a rental application?
Bill 60 may help, but it does not answer every practical question for landlords. The law gives the Minister authority to require evidence of Ontario residency and lawful presence when considering the issuance, renewal or change of a licence or Photo Card. But landlords still need clarity on how this will be implemented in practice.
Will older cards be revalidated? Will renewals trigger new verification? Will landlords have any way of knowing whether a card was issued under the old rules or new rules? What happens to the cards already issued under the old rules, and how long will they remain in circulation?
These are not just theoretical questions. Ontario’s own Photo Card page states the card is valid for five years and that renewal can occur online if no new photo is required, with a new photo required every 10 years.
So even if the rules are improved going forward, landlords still need to be careful when reviewing a potential tenant’s existing ID. Do not rely on Ontario ID alone, a driver’s licence or Photo Card should be treated as one piece of the application, not as the entire screening process.
That means checking whether the rental application, government ID, credit report, employment letter, pay records, references and any other documents voluntarily provided by the applicant all tell the same story.
It means checking whether the address history makes sense.
It means confirming employment directly through independently verified contact information, such as a company website, main office number, or official business email — not just the phone number or email given by an applicant.
It means reviewing the credit report, with the applicant’s consent, for consistency. These may include mismatched names, unexplained recent address changes, unusual inquiries or other inconsistencies. A limited credit history does not automatically mean fraud, but if it appears alongside other inconsistencies, it is a reason to slow down.
It means asking why documents do not line up.
When an applicant is rushing, offering extra money, refusing standard checks or pressuring the landlord to skip normal screening, slowing down can protect you. Fraudsters count on landlords being tired, scared of vacancies, and eager to believe a good-looking application.
Do not make it easy for them.
Landlords must still apply screening standards fairly and consistently. The point is not to reject applicants based on assumptions, but to verify documents, check for consistency, and slow down when the application does not add up.
If you are a landlord who relied on Ontario ID and later discovered identity fraud, false documents, unpaid rent or a fraudulent application, contact SOLO Landlords. These cases need to be documented, connected and brought forward.
This article is based on Ontario government Bill 60 materials, the government’s technical briefing deck, Ontario Photo Card renewal information, DriveTest identity-document rules, and correspondence provided by an anonymous SOLO Landlord member regarding their FOI inquiries to the Ministry of Transportation.
Bill 60: https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-44/session-1/bill-60
Technical Briefing: https://news.ontario.ca/assets/files/20251023/56f8ae306aaed7abc089126aecdeaffa.pdf Photo Card Information: https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontario-photo-card DriveTest Acceptable ID Documents: https://drivetest.ca/licences/acceptable-id
