I also think they are a bad idea, just for the general scale issue if not anything else. If person X from GeneralScammyHack country wants to steal my plate to sell on the darknet, they have to get on a plane, find my house in suburbia, break into my garage and even then find a proprietary screwdriver or hit the snap on truck before they come. Point is, they can't hack it. Same with my license, like they need to come take my wallet or I need to lose it. Basically all I have to worry about is Methany peeling my plate off at the 7-11 and committing some super low level impropriety, maybe a local murder or two. I'm not going to find Jason Bourne using my plate in New Jersey or anything like that, and if I do, it's just odds and quite an involved level of forgery.

It does free up our prisoners for other slave labor tasks

The average person thinks digital = magic! and marketers/governments, etc are well aware of that, and will abuse that fact anytime they can.

Ever had to explain to someone that "the cloud" isn't a physical cloud in the sky keeping their passwords & nudes safe? I have way too many times.

You can slap a screen on just about anything that doesn't need it and people will want it.