Bar-coded licenses promoted in New Jersey

Gannett News Service | December 30 2004

WASHINGTON -- Walk into one of New Jersey's 45 motor-vehicle offices to get a drivers license and you're instantly under surveillance by closed-circuit TV and an undercover officer. Even before you get in line, a state worker checks your passport, birth certificate or other required documents.

When you get your license, you'll notice a bar code on the back that police officers can read with electronic scanners to verify your identity -- one of 22 security features built into the card. And forget about renewing your license by mail: Everyone now must show up.

Those changes adopted by New Jersey may serve as a roadmap for a national push to make all drivers licenses tougher to duplicate.

A new homeland security law passed by Congress requires the federal government to work with states over the next 18 months to devise new security standards for drivers licenses and identification cards.
The law, which enacts intelligence reforms urged by a commission looking at the Sept. 11 attacks, seeks to close a potential vulnerability -- identity fraud -- that could let terrorists roam the country undetected. Most of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers got drivers licenses or other forms of identification that allowed them to board commercial flights with little scrutiny, according to the commission report.

"It was the key document to launch the attacks," said Amanda Bowman of Sloatsburg, N.Y., president of the Coalition for a Secure Driver's License. Coalition members include people who lost family members on Sept. 11.

"Three years later, we think this is literally the issue where the rubber hits the road," Bowman said.

But skeptics say new restrictions on drivers licenses could mean new hassles for consumers -- higher costs, unnecessary delays and a hefty dose of Big Brother -- without really improving security.

New Jersey spent more than $10 million bolstering license security, a cost that prompted the state to raise the price of a license from $18 to $24. And its decision to do away with mail-ins is expected to lengthen waiting lines.

The new law says the federal government must pay for the new security measures for licenses, but states aren't convinced they'll ever see the money.

Supporters say tougher standards will discourage forgers and improve highway safety by making it easier to take improperly licensed drivers off the road.

The new federal law requires all state-issued licenses to have digital photographs. They also must be designed to be tamper-proof, which could involve an eye scan or some other form of biometrics.

Most chilling to some is the requirement that the licenses have "common machine-readable identity information," such as a magnetic strip or, in the case of New Jersey, a bar code.

"Is the government literally going to be watching you?" said Cheye Calvo of the National Conference of State Legislatures. "That's a big deal because when you get into federal standards, you're walking a very thin line from turning a drivers license into a national identification card."

Drivers licenses, which states have been issuing for about a century without federal interference, already are the primary identification used by most people. They are displayed far more often to bartenders, airline agents and bank tellers than to police officers for driving infractions.

"We've got to be able to produce a very authentic credential that the American public can rely on not just for driving," said Jason King, spokesman for the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. "The state DMVs have been looking to make their process and operation more secure, and this legislation is a step in the right direction."

One aspect the law doesn't address: whether illegal aliens should be allowed to get a license. The homeland security legislation nearly collapsed over the issue, but lawmakers opposed to the practice agreed to take up the issue as a separate matter in the upcoming congressional session.

Currently 10 states -- Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin -- don't require licensees to be U.S. residents. An 11th state, Tennessee, allows undocumented immigrants to obtain a "certificate for driving," but it can't be used for identification.

More secure drivers licenses should help make roads safer. Each year, 8,400 people nationwide die in traffic crashes involving an improperly licensed driver. With a better means of checking credentials, some of those drivers could be identified and removed before they get into trouble, King said.

Marv Johnson, a lawyer with the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the IDs created under the new law won't make the country any safer.

Most countries experiencing a high rate of terrorism have a national ID, and one-third of those use biometric identifiers, according to the ACLU. The new licenses will give the federal government another way to keep track of citizens while creating a false sense of security, Johnson said.

"You're not going to stop counterfeiting and you're not going to stop forgeries," he said. "It will cost more, (but) it will be much easier to steal someone's identity."

Critics point out that the law won't prevent government workers from illegally selling bogus licenses. Connecticut and Virginia have been investigating license-selling schemes, and a federal jury recently found a North Carolina motor-vehicle employee guilty of such crimes.

Gordon Deal, spokesman for the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, conceded that fraud is always a worry but said the new changes in his state already are making a difference.

"We've noticed the street value has gone up because it's much harder to get a New Jersey drivers license now," he said.