Loss of Privacy

Two months ago, REAL-ID went into effect in Florida and many residents are having problems proving their identities to obtain the new driver’s licenses. Florida is one of the few states complying with the law as many states have said that REAL-ID is too expensive to implement and the federal government has extended the deadline several times.

Read the rest of my latest article at The Daily Censored.

At many of Utah’s DMV offices, long lines have arisen at the attempts to implement REAL-ID. Some wait times are nearing four hours, creating havoc at the DMV and irate drivers.

In order to speed up the process, Governor Herbert announced that the D.M.V. located in Draper would be open on Fridays from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. However, this elimination of the Draper D.M.V.’s four-day workweek is temporary. Another service that has been put in place to help with wait times is an estimated wait time page online; this estimated time page encompasses Wasatch Front locations.

Despite long wait times applicants must now provide documentation from four categories: Legal/Lawful Presence or Status Evidence; Identity Verification; Social Security Number (S.S.N.) or proof of ineligibility to obtain S.S.N. or Individual Tax Identification Number (I.T.I.N.). This is an increase of documentation is aimed at screening people who are in the United States illegally.

Document requirements are further complicated by the fact that it changes depending on whether or not applicants are seeking a regular or limited term license. Regular licensing includes people seeking a new driver license or renewing their driver license.

Documentation that qualifies as Legal/Lawful Presence or Status Evidence (for regular I.D.) includes valid U.S. passport, certified birth certificate, valid Permanent Resident Card, Certificate of Naturalization, or a Certificate of Citizenship. Documents used for Legal/Lawful Presence or Status Evidence can be used for Identity Verification as well.

S.S.N. or proof of ineligibility to obtain S.S.N. or I.T.I.N. documents is social security card, W-2 form, pay stub showing name and S.S.N., or an SSA-1099 form. However, Commercial Driver License applicants must have a social security card. Applicants must provide two Utah Residency Verification documents. Residency verification must display applicants’ address and can include utility bills, recent bank statement, valid Utah vehicle registration or court documents. Only one of these two documents can be printed from the internet.

The D.M.V. will scan all documentation, which will be put into a secure system. The D.M.V. suggests that all applicants look at estimated wait times and gather necessary documentation before going to the D.M.V.

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.

Listen to The Last Hope’s talk on the REAL-ID Act and RFID Legal and Privacy Implications.

Listen to the MP3.

Though already passed, and rejected in several states, the Obama Administration has said that it wants to scale back the use of REAL-ID.  Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants to repeal the entire law before it goes into effect in 2012 and replace it with Pass ID, which would be cheaper and would come with government grants to help with its implementation.

As governor of Arizona, Napolitano called Real ID “feel-good” legislation not worth the cost, and she signed a state law last year opting out of the plan. As secretary, she said a substitute would “accomplish some of the same goals.”

The new plan keeps elements of Real ID, such as requiring a digital photograph, signature and machine-readable features such as a bar code. States also will still need to verify applicants’ identities and legal status by checking federal immigration, Social Security and State Department databases.

But it eliminates demands for new databases — linked through a national data hub — that would allow all states to store and cross-check such information, and a requirement that motor vehicle departments verify birth certificates with originating agencies, a bid to fight identity theft.

Instead, it adds stronger privacy controls and limits such development to a pilot program in Mississippi. DHS would have nine months to write new regulations, and states would have five years to reissue all licenses, with completion expected in 2016.

Though this legislation would still result in a national identity card, it eliminates the central database that would be an easy target to identity thieves.  It is also good that Napolitano wants more privacy controls.

Too often, REAL-ID has been touted as a way to prevent terrorism and identity theft, using the tired argument of the 9/11 hijackers.  Everyone seems to forget that those men were in the country legally and obtained their IDs legally, including their driver’s licenses.  They did not commit fraud in order to obtain identities while in America.  They used their own.

If the government hasn’t bothered to tackle the real problem of identity theft, social security numbers, then how is REAL-ID supposed to protect you?  If you look closely at REAL-ID, it was designed to put every US citizen into a database that could be watched and tracked.  If the government really cared about identity theft, then the entire social security administration would have been working hard to prevent people from stealing your number and using it to open bank accounts, lines of credit, and establishing new identities based on your SSN.