REAL-ID was originally slated to go into effect in May 2008, yet numerous extensions and delays have it circling the drain. Today 25 US states and 11 territories are out of compliance with REAL-ID, most planning to never implement the scheme.

Security Management’s Joseph Straw writes that the 2005 law requires that applicants for state-issued IDs including driver’s licenses demonstrate legal U.S. residence and requires that states incorporate security features into ID cards. These security features include biometric information and RFID capabilities. The law also mandates that states store electronic copies of “breeder” documents like birth certificates and Social Security cards, so that application materials can be checked against copies of originals. There are five other, non-driver’s license-related requirements in the law.

Earlier this year DHS secretary Janet Napolitano – a fierce opponent of Real ID during her tenure as governor of Arizona — endorsed pending legislation called the PASS ID Act, which would remove the requirement that states maintain electronic copies of breeder documents. Straw writes that PASS ID would further set a 2016 deadline for total compliance of all licenses regardless of issue date. That deadline is a year ahead of the REAL ID Act’s, but PASS ID would eliminate a series of the current law’s interim deadlines.

As deadlines are further pushed back, one has to wonder if any part of REAL-ID or PASS ID will ever be fully enforced.