The Reasons TSA May Reject Some State Drivers' Licenses As Travel Identification
There is a clash between two conflicting sets of demands: citizen-consumers' growing insistence on privacy versus law enforcement's insistence on better information in order to prevent terrorist attacks.
In the US all drivers' licenses are issued by the state in which the driver is resident. But the federal government is insisting that all state drivers' licenses comply with national standards.
What complicates the disagreement is the belief, based on the Chinese hacking of federal government databases, that the government doesnt do a very good job of protecting the personal information of its own employees, let alone of its common citizens. There is also hostility to the national government from some more conservative southern and western states due to disparities in racial, ethnic and social beliefs. Though, ironically, a number of the states deemed to be currently out of compliance - Minnesota and Washington, for instance - have an historically more liberal record.
The final source of objection comes from big tech companies who view protection of customers' privacy as an important selling point. But whatever the root cause, concerns about physical safety are ultimately certain to outweigh those about theoretical rights. JL
Jad Mouawad reports in the New York Times:
The new standards require more stringent proof of identity and allow users’ information to be shared in a
national database.The
Department of Homeland Security said the law’s intention was not to
create a national identification card but to extend what the agency
calls best practices on issuing driver’s licenses that apply to all
states. Sharing large amounts of private information across states makes some privacy advocates nervous.
The issue is quickly intensifying, and the debate over identification and privacy has grown after the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and California.
But some states have bitterly opposed these requirements out of privacy concerns, and more than a dozen have passed laws barring their motor vehicle departments from complying with the law, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The new standards require more stringent proof of identity and will eventually allow users’ information to be shared more easily in a national database.
Privacy experts, civil liberty organizations and libertarian groups fear the law would create something like a national identification card.
Federal and state officials have been arguing for years about the merits of the law, called the Real ID Act, which was enacted by Congress in 2005 on the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission. Its proponents argue that it is a necessary tool to reduce identity theft and fraud, and enhance the nation’s security.
The federal government cannot force states to adopt these identification standards, but it can gain compliance in other ways. In October, it began requiring that visitors to military bases, nuclear plants and federal facilities produce a driver’s license from a state that complies with the law, or show another form of government ID, like a passport.
But the biggest leverage the government has over the states is commercial air travel.
The Department of Homeland Security said it would provide a schedule by the end of this year for when airport screeners would start accepting only driver’s licenses that complied with federal standards. It said that 120 days’ notice would be given before starting to enforce the law at airports.
Some states may be required as early as next year to make changes to their driver’s licensing procedures, to bring them into compliance with the Real ID Act, enacted by Congress in 2005.
COMPLIANCE WITH REAL ID ACT OF CURRENT STATE DRIVER’S LICENSES
Currently compliant
WASH.
Extension allows current
licenses until June 1, 2016
N.H.
MAINE
MONT.
N.D.
VT.
MINN.
ORE.
MASS.
WIS.
IDAHO
N.Y.
S.D.
Extension allows current
licenses until Oct. 10, 2016
R.I.
MICH.
WYO.
CONN.
PA.
IOWA
N.J.
NEB.
NEV.
OHIO
IND.
DEL.
ILL.
UTAH
Under review for extension
renewal, current licenses permitted
until at least Jan. 10, 2016
W.
VA.
COLO.
MD.
VA.
KAN.
MO.
KY.
CALIF.
N.C.
TENN.
OKLA.
ARIZ.
N.M.
ARK.
S.C.
ALA.
No extension. Subject to enforcement
beginning Jan. 10, 2016
GA.
MISS.
TEXAS
LA.
ALASKA
Not compliant, but federal officials
may continue to accept enhanced
driver’s licenses here.
FLA.
HAWAII
COMPLIANCE WITH REAL ID ACT
OF CURRENT STATE DRIVER’S LICENSES
Currently compliant
Extension allows current licenses until June 1, 2016
Extension allows current licenses until Oct. 10, 2016
Under review for extension renewal, current licenses
permitted until at least Jan. 10, 2016
No extension. Subject to enforcement by Jan. 10, 2016
Not compliant, but federal officials may continue to
accept enhanced driver’s licenses here.
Passengers who do not have a compliant type of identification will have to produce another type of government-approved identification.
“This is a game of intimidation being played out between Congress and the federal government and state governments, with ordinary citizens being squeezed in the middle,” said Edward Hasbrouck of the Identity Project, a privacy advocate.
A small number of states must still meet the requirements of the act, though several were granted extensions by the federal government, which effectively delays any application until late next year.
The Department of Homeland Security deems most states to have made enough progress that it has certified or provided extensions to all but a few, including Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington.
Even so, the deadline could be extended again. Mr. Hasbrouck said he did not believe that the government would risk turning back travelers who could not provide the right identification card at airports.
“There is an impasse,” Mr. Hasbrouck said. “There has been a standoff for more than a decade now. The feds have limited powers to coerce the states in this case.”
New York drivers should not be affected for now. While the state is not in compliance, it uses a type of enhanced driver’s license, which shares some of the requirements of Real ID and was deemed appropriate by federal authorities for now.
As a result, New York was given an extension through October 2016 to comply, according to the state Motor Vehicles Department.
In October, New Hampshire and Louisiana were also granted extensions that run through June 2016 to comply with the act. Minnesota and American Samoa were not given extensions this year, which means their residents might be the first ones to be affected if the T.S.A. decides to apply the law at airports next year.
Homeland Security officials insist there will be no more delays. In recent months, federal officials have visited Minnesota and other states to stress that the clock was ticking. The message was that while participation was voluntary, there would be consequences for failing to comply.
“The federal government has quietly gone around and clubbed states into submission,” said Warren Limmer, a state senator in Minnesota and one of the authors of a 2009 state law that prohibits local officials from complying with the federal law. “That’s a pretty heavy club.”
The law sets some minimum requirements for states to follow when issuing driver’s licenses. For instance
it requires applicants to provide documents to prove their identity, Social Security number and immigration status in the United States.
The new standards also require that licenses be equipped with “machine readable” technology, like a chip or a magnetic strip, to store all that personal information. Data from one state should also be made available electronically to all other states, and possibly also to federal authorities.
That information will eventually be shared through a system administered by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, a private group that provides support services to state motor vehicle departments.
A press officer for the Department of Homeland Security said the law’s intention was not to create a national identification card but to extend what the agency calls best practices on issuing driver’s licenses that apply to all states.
Still, sharing large amounts of private information across states makes some privacy advocates nervous.
Marc Rotenberg, the president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said he agreed with some provisions of the law, which were meant to make driver’s licenses more tamper-proof and less likely to be counterfeited. But he is concerned with all the information being available on the cards in a way that makes it more shareable.
“That’s exactly what we should not be doing,” he said.
Instead, he said, linking all of the nation’s driver’s license records together would increase the vulnerability and potentially expose the information to more risk.
The recent theft of millions of private records from the Office of Personnel Management did not inspire confidence in the government’s ability to maintain secure databases, he said.
“You create more risk when you connect databases,” he said. “One vulnerability becomes multiple vulnerabilities.”
Some states have objected to the law on the grounds that it imposes too high a cost. The government estimates that the program will cost $3.9 billion, and it has provided grants to states
that are moving ahead.
But some critics said that figure vastly underestimated the costs, and they often cited an early study from 2006 that puts the cost at $11 billion over five years.
Some also object to the federal standard tying driver’s licenses directly to immigration policies. Some states, for instance, do not ask applicants for their immigration status when applying for a driver’s license, something that is required by the Real ID Act.
While many states — like Maine, Missouri and Montana — do not participate in Real ID, they have issued licenses that share many of the standards that the federal government has called for. This explains why most states are deemed to be in compliance or have received extensions to comply with the law.
Still, some of the law’s critics say it may only be a matter of time before all states fall into line.
Jim Harper, a senior analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said that federal officials had weakened the requirements of the law to present the appearance that many states were falling in line and complying.
“We are already pushing into a society where all this data about us is available,” Mr. Harper said. “This would get us there much faster. That is the long-term horizon.”
As a Partner and Co-Founder of Predictiv and PredictivAsia, Jon specializes in management performance and organizational effectiveness for both domestic and international clients. He is an editor and author whose works include Invisible Advantage: How Intangilbles are Driving Business Performance. Learn more...
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