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United States Security

Driver's Licenses with Digital Watermarks 373

Posted by michael from the stuck-with-near-beer dept.
ForceQuit writes "MIT Technology Review reports that Minnesota will begin issuing a unique driver's license designed to combat counterfeiting. It includes a reflective image (of a loon) that appears to float above and below the card when the license is tilted. It also includes an invisible, digital watermark capable of carrying security data such as date of birth. The information would be readable only through a computerized scanner, which law enforcement officers could carry."
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Driver's Licenses with Digital Watermarks More

Driver's Licenses with Digital Watermarks

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  • Loons (Score:3, Funny)

    by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) * on Friday December 10, 2004 @10:19AM (#11051399) Homepage

    The floating images will be of loons, an enduring symbol of the state.

    I thought that was California?!?!

  • You're Confused (Score:3, Funny)

    by cflorio ( 604840 ) on Friday December 10, 2004 @10:19AM (#11051404) Homepage
    The picture of the Loon is actually your photo!

  • Driver's license security (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PhotoJim ( 813785 ) <jim AT photojim DOT ca> on Friday December 10, 2004 @10:22AM (#11051423) Homepage
    This sounds like a good idea. Identity fraud is a serious problem. I work at an insurance office in Saskatchewan (Canada) that does license issuing among other things. We get all sorts of efforts to acquire fake ID, it's rather pathetic. Almost all of the efforts involve trying to drink under age, but these days the reality is that people will try to get fake identities for less savoury purposes. It's hard to criticize this move by Minnesota.
    • Damn, glad they didn't have this when I was a teen...would have really made it difficult to buy beer/booze....

    • Re:Driver's license security (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Frymaster ( 171343 ) on Friday December 10, 2004 @10:33AM (#11051537) Homepage Journal
      I work at an insurance office in Saskatchewan... We get all sorts of efforts to acquire fake ID, it's rather pathetic.

      i live in alberta where we have a snazzy driver's license with an encoded pattern and such.

      about a year ago i lost my license (along with just about every other card i have) so i headed down to one of the privatized "registry shops" to get a new one.

      really, the process was embarassingly easy. when the woman asked me behind the counter for some i.d. i said "it's all been stolen". she shrugged, took my picture, and gave me a brand new license basically on faith alone that i was who i claimed to be.

      now, she did look at the picture they had on file but, really, if you look like like your license photo you're in rough shape. bottom line: any 180 cm tall male with light hair and grey eyes who didn't look too dissimilar to me could have waltzed in there and picked up a license with my name on it, snazzy security stripe not withstanding.

      • Try New Jersey...My college roommate did this

        He took his brothers birth certificate and Social Sec Card to a different DMV(Dept. of Motor Vehicles) and said he lost his license. Since pictures weren't kept centrally (only at local offices) they gave him a brand spanking new license with HIS picture but all his brothers info on it. And the original license his brother had was never cancelled. So now two valid licenses existed for the same person with different pictures.

        Granted you needed the docs, bu
      • My company wants to combat this by putting chips in your head.

        www.patriot-tags.com

        The civil liberties people complain, but only _before_ the implantation, they're a docile as lambs after it. Sometimes they get in trouble, robbing banks to raise money to invest in us, but the tech support guys are working on that.

        We've just got a $1B contract from the Chinese, and donated the cash to the Republican party, so we have pretty high hopes in the American market too.

        Anyhow, need go, just got that one pesky lon
  • So really, there is no need to worry from a teenage perspective. It'll be another 10 years before any kind of tavern has a card-swiper to actually tell that you're not of age. By then, someone will have found some way to replace/confuse the machine and you'll appear of age.
    • this might actually be a good from the teenage perspetive. When the digital encoding is cracked, and the use of the scanners is wide spread, most vendors won't even take the time to look at the card. They'll just swipe it and serve you.

    • Re:Nothing to worry about... (Score:4, Informative)

      by rkhalloran ( 136467 ) on Friday December 10, 2004 @10:40AM (#11051606) Homepage
      I know one of the local pubs put in a scanner that supposedly can read all of the various mag-stripe licenses. He said saving the cost/headaches of fines for serving to minors more than covers the cost (approx US$2K).

      Don't know how many of the forgers hack up the mag-stripe data as well, but it's probably not a lot.

      • Re:Nothing to worry about... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Friday December 10, 2004 @11:07AM (#11051937)
        He said saving the cost/headaches of fines for serving to minors more than covers the cost (approx US$2K).

        Not to mention the high-quality database he's been able to acquire of information about his patrons. Not just name, sex, height, date of birth, eye-color, home address and DL# -- all highly desirable to someone making forged driver's licenses --- but also the patterns of their comings and goings at his place of business, both individually and group demographics (as in Tuesday night seems to be popular with the yuppies as well as something more devious like Fred and Bob always show up at about the same time together, maybe they are having an affair).

        I refuse to let any non-government agency swipe the mag-stripe on my driver's license If they won't serve me without doing so, I don't do business with them. I have walked out on such establishments in the past, the risk of identity theft is a lot greater than the occasional hassle of such precautions against it.

        • Re:Nothing to worry about... (Score:5, Informative)

          by mrgreen4242 ( 759594 ) on Friday December 10, 2004 @11:54AM (#11052406)
          In Michigan anyway, and I am assuming most states, the mag stripe contains a very limited amount of info. There's your DL number, your DOB, and a couple of SMALL numeric codes that, from what I can tell, correlate to the office where your ID was proccessed at, and the type of license/endorsements you have (regular driver, CDL, School Bus, HazMat, motorcycle, etc).

          I am involved in a project to install new ID systems in the Sec. of State offices here, and I have personally scanned my licence into a text editor and looked at the information on there. It's something like 45 characters or so.

          If you are worried about someone getting all that iformation, it would be much more effective and much easier to have a cheap camera installed at teh point of sale (cashier register, self checkout lane, in the black light of the door bouncer types of bars) and grab medium resolution 5 fps video of everything that goes by. All that info that you are paranoid about giving up through an electronic reader is actually on the front of your license.

        • Re:Nothing to worry about... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Olinator ( 412652 ) <[olc+sdot] [at] [hex.cs.umass.edu]> on Friday December 10, 2004 @12:01PM (#11052489) Homepage

          Blockpoth the quoster:

          [...]
          I refuse to let any non-government agency swipe the mag-stripe on my driver's license If they won't serve me without doing so, I don't do business with them.[...]
          There's a simpler way -- introduce the magstrip on your license to Mr. Bulk Magtape Eraser. Then they can swipe away, and when their reader doesn't work, you say "Yeah, that happens to my credit cards, too, sometimes -- I occasionally work around high magnetic fields." Then they have to look at the front of the license anyway. If they don't accept it, it's not like you're out anything -- you weren't going to frequent their establishment anyway, right?
          Ole
      • Don't know how many of the forgers hack up the mag-stripe data as well, but it's probably not a lot.

        The hell it isn't. I know a lot of people who re-encode their license mag stripes to get into bars (the bouncers take a quick glance at the photo and swipe the card...they will believe whatever the machine has to say.)

        For this reason, I believe that machine readability is a disaster waiting to happen.

  • Great Move, With a Caveat (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Staplerh ( 806722 ) on Friday December 10, 2004 @10:22AM (#11051435) Homepage
    Don't see any possible problems with this move, apart from the immigration part. Sounds like the information encoded in the chip contains no sensitive information, so that's a bonus, and a more secure identification system makes the entire system more reliable. However, from the article:

    There will also be a "status check" notation on the front and back of licenses showing when an immigrant's visa expires, something the state already had begun to put on licenses despite opposition from civil liberties groups.

    This is a bit of a sticky point, IMHO. This isn't really necessary, and will probably achieve nothing but undue stress for immigrants, and prompt deportation if an illegal gets caught at a traffic stop (presuming that these IDs can not be forged). I don't know what Minnesota's illegal immigrant problem is, but this is a disturbing development. It's a drivers license, not a citizenship card. First step in a bad direction?
    • Immigrants don't have the same rights as citizens. That's true in every country on Earth. While they deserve certain rights, until they gain citizenship and share in the responsibilities and obligations of citizenship, they don't have the right to gain all the benefits and rights of living in that society. I don't think that Western countries have skewed the balance too far.
    • No, sir. "Undue" stress? If they're here unlawfully, then they're breaking the law. Yes, it's stressful to be caught breaking the law. Sorry.

      Call me a fascist if you want, but this is a step in a good direction.

      • Re:Great Move, With a Caveat (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Xcott Craver ( 615642 ) on Friday December 10, 2004 @11:10AM (#11051973)
        You're assuming that the data on the driver's license will be correct---i.e., that it will list the bearer's current visa status.

        Will they get a free replacement whenever their status changes? Will we ever see someone mistakenly arrested because his/her license is out of date?

        If you're here unlawfully, sure you're breaking the law. If you're here lawfully but your driver's license disagrees, is that breaking the law? Does the law require you to properly maintain every thing upon which some bureaucrat decides to plaster your visa status?

        This is the same problem we have with databases of sex offenders. It may sound like a great idea, if you assume the database is accurate. But entries get stale, and suddenly people start tossing bricks through your window and beating up your kids at school.

        Xcott

      • Immigrant Americans (i.e. every American citizen alive today, whose family immigrated here sometime within the last couple hundred years or so) have continued to live up to the reputation which they created early on with the native Americans: "white man speak with forked tongue".

        On the one hand, tens of millions of illegal aliens are welcomed into menial jobs throughout the country: from farm labor to maid work to nannies. Ordinary people employ them, as well as companies. You even get illegals doing not
    • The only problem I see is that an officer could determine that the person is an immigrant from looking at the card. I could see police unfairly treating a person differently because of that.

      Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing illegal immigrants deported whether at a traffic stop or even at the local Wal-Mart. I'm really not too concerned about our immigration policy, but I do think if someone is doing something illegally and then get stopped for allegidly doing something else illegally (with just cause of

      • Legal info from a Minnesota Attorney (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        For the first time I actually have something to contribute. As an attorney in Minneapolis who works with mostly undocumented immigrants (illegal immigrants) I think i should add a couple of details to this.

        1) Minneapolis has an ordinace preventing police from asking about a persons immigration status, unless that status is a part of another crime. (so this means at a traffic stop they can _not_ ask you about your status) There are two reasons behind this law. One reason the city passed this law is to encou
        • They are not 'undocumented' immigrants. They are fucking ILLEGAL immigrants. They are here ILLEGALLY, ergo they are ILLEGAL immigrants and should be put out of the country for any infraction that brings them to the attention of authorities.
        • "However the primary reason for the law is that federal law gives sole jurisdiction over immigration matters to federal law enforcement. That means that even without the Minneapolis ordinace the local police can't enforce immigration law. Just like the Immigration officers can't arrest you for speeding or running a red light."

          So, why aren't the policemen, who find and illegal alien (a lawbreaker) not immediately turning them over to the Fed's for deportation? This is lunacy. A law, a serious law is being

    • I don't know what Minnesota's illegal immigrant problem is

      Mostly it's people from Wiconsin crossing the river in makeshift rafts in search of lower taxes.
      • I don't know what Minnesota's illegal immigrant problem is

        Mostly it's people from Wiconsin crossing the river in makeshift rafts in search of lower taxes.

        Until it's time to license one's car... Apparently WI has a much lower vehicle registration cost than MN.
    • Undue stress? It's the immigrant's responsibility to keep track of his legal status, and to leave the country once his license to remain within it has expired. "Illegal immigrants" are called that for a reason.

    • Re:Great Move, With a Caveat (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      according to the article, "Fake ID cards made it possible for the Sept. 11 terrorists to board commercial flights.". I thought that had already been debunked to death.

    • I don't see a problem here. Immigration is a serious issue that needs to be more seriously addressed at the state and federal levels.

      It's well known that the INS is understaffed to handle the problem of managing both legal and illegal immigrants. Look at the problem in California and several other states where the local law enforcement is instructed to ignore resident status when illegals are encountered/arrested/whatever. This is done due to a policitical fight over money. The local law enformcent wil
    • There is no such thing as a "citizenship card".
      (Too bad, too, because that is part of what
      prompted passage of Arizona's "Prop 200" --
      non-citizens participating in local, state, and
      national elections w/o even a driver's license.)

      Minnesota's new driver's license is a move in
      the right direction, although IMHO it should
      include blood type, thumbprint, and DNA sequence.
      If Minnesota is anything like the Metro DC area,
      most of the local police couldn't be bothered
      less about whether an immigrant's visa has
      expired (l
    • This isn't really necessary, and will probably achieve nothing but undue stress for immigrants, and prompt deportation if an illegal gets caught at a traffic stop (presuming that these IDs can not be forged).

      Police already do ID checks of drivers they pull over, and will arrest people on outstanding warrants. Is that a violation of the driver's privacy, or a completely within the realm of law enforcement? If someone is in the country illegally, do we not have justification for deportation?

      I believe the

  • Finally, a sensible state (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Qzukk ( 229616 ) on Friday December 10, 2004 @10:23AM (#11051439) Journal
    None of this encoding my life history on the card, or letting my card broadcast my identification to everyone sitting on the bus with me. This state has it right. If the cop wants my information, he can stop me and ask me for it. The things on the computer readable portion are on the card anyway, so it lets the cop scan me in and let me go on my merry way faster, without the hassle of having my DL number mistyped and coming up as some wanted murderer.

    Maybe I should look into moving.
    • Sensible?

      Are you forgetting that Minnesota is the same state the at elected Jesse Ventura as it's governor?

      As a (now) former Minnesotan who voted in that horrible 1998 election, I too carry the shame of his being elected, even though I voted for one of the other guys (who is now a congressmen).
      • Stop reminding me!

        I was out of the state when this vote happened so I take no responsibility for the foolishness of slightly over a third of our population. What % did Jesse end up getting? 35%? 40%?
    • None of this encoding my life history on the card, or letting my card broadcast my identification to everyone sitting on the bus with me. This state has it right. If the cop wants my information, he can stop me and ask me for it. The things on the computer readable portion are on the card anyway, so it lets the cop scan me in and let me go on my merry way faster, without the hassle of having my DL number mistyped and coming up as some wanted murderer.

      As long as private companies (like liquor stores) canno

  • Can it be produced? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Friday December 10, 2004 @10:27AM (#11051484) Homepage Journal
    If so, it can be reproduced. The only issue is if the cost is too high to make it worthwhile to copy.
    • "The only issue is if the cost is too high to make it worthwhile to copy."

      Herein lies the problem. These things are still going to be copied by folks (like terrorists) who find it worth the money to fake an ID. Johnny Underagecollegekid's fake ID isn't going to pass police inspection, so this is completely useless in that case (our downtown police radio the info in to the station to verify that the ID is real anyways). his scenario is similar most other lesser reason for getting fake ids. The people th
      • The people this ID is targeted at will be the ones with the resources to fake the info.

        Perhaps some groups yes but not all. Let's not forget the other face of terrorism; small groups of kooks like Tim McVeigh. Would McVeigh have the resources for this?

        Once again slashdotters are naysayers to a technology because it's not a catch-all. Sorry folks, if there was a catch-all solution to the problems of terrorism, illegal imigration, identity theft or forgery you let me know; we'll make a mint off it.

        By maki
        • It's ok if a system is not a catch-all, but if it's not then don't tout it as one. My primary point (at the bottom of the post) is that I fear these new IDs being scrutinized less because they are so hard to duplicate.
    • It's possible to make physical objects extremely difficult to reproduce by using custom-built and carefully monitored equipment and materials in their construction; look at what goes into manufacturing paper money.

  • overkill (Score:3, Funny)

    by TedCheshireAcad ( 311748 ) <ted AT fc DOT rit DOT edu> on Friday December 10, 2004 @10:29AM (#11051502) Homepage
    All this to keep terrorists from attacking us. And by 'keep terrorists from attacking us', I mean 'keep underage kids from buying beer'.
    • Yep.

      Certainly the number of "lost" (read: hologram cut out to be placed on fake license) licenses will skyrocket once this goes into effect.
    • keep underage kids from buying beer
      This goes beyond keeping kids from buying beer.
      In Fl and in Va our DL's have quasi holograms on them, that might help prevent underage liquor purchases but not by much. My first year in college the guys in the room next to mine were still pumping out fake ID's so students could get in to clubs and buy alcohol etc. So obviously the countermeasures are in some cases only as good as the person checking the ID's, unless it's easy to reproduce. Face it if a minor want to buy a
  • to all the other states that DONT issue a "unique" drivers license?

  • Pictures! (Score:2, Informative)

    by adler187 ( 448837 )
    I just happened across this the other day. Filling out an accident claim I saw this [state.mn.us] page on the MN Dept. of Public Safety site which has a picture of the new liscense. My first impression was not terribly positive. To me it looks pretty ugly, but whatever.
    • The license iteself isn't too bad. It's the picture of "Gayle Elizabeth Sample" that looks fugly.

      Another interesting point flying under the proverbial radar here is the new numbering system. It's no longer based on one's name, and will be re-assigned to you if you leave the state and return.
    • That's just because Ms. Sample looks like she's coked up.
  • How is this news?

    Missouri has been issuing drivers licenses with a digital water mark of the state capitol for a number of years.
  • Umm.. hello... virtually every ID is like this now and has been for years.

    Now, apparently the slashdot people have gotten so bad that not only do they hardly ever leave their parents basements, when they do they don't even have identification on them, considering the last time i saw a state ID or DL that did not have such security measures was probably in the early 90's.
  • Can someone explain to us non-Americans what a "loon" is? The only association I have with that word is "lunatic," which I'm guessing is not what's actually on the drivers' license.
  • It's got this pattern of staple holes all over the corner.
  • So uh, What will prevent terrorists from just stealing drivers licenses from people who look like them?
  • Method One: Dress nice, get a decent looking date, go to a place that isn't some sort of meat rack with a million screaming "teenangers" trying to crash their way in, lay a fifty on the table, and order. Rarely fails.

    Method two: Go to a bar without a license. The company is probably better. Well, at least more interesting.

    Is there an underager out there that doesn't know this?
  • The article doesn't go into to much technical detail, but I wonder if the digital watermark has any level on encryption at all. I could imagine a clever hacker working around the digital watermark -- unless is has a formidable amount of encryption.

    Even better would be a system where each piece of information was encrypted with a different key.
  • I hope in the future of ID management that credit card transactions at retail stores and/or via the Internet become more of a two factor transaction, first requiring the card and then requiring a swipe of the driver's license or state id.

    As a one time victim of id theft and credit card fraud, I hope that the technology being used to help law enforcement ID people when necessary could be used in the private sector to help secure our financial identities.

    It would be difficult for someone who's stolen your c

  • Last time I checked (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Thunderstruck ( 210399 ) on Friday December 10, 2004 @10:48AM (#11051707)
    In most states there is no penalty for forgetting your driver's license at home, or for travelling without it if you're not driving. (The latter would raise all sorts of right to travel issues. The former results in a warning to produce the license within 10 days.)

    So from a privacy perspective, am I not better off just leaving my license at home wrapped up in my tinfoil hat?

    • IANAL - but I believe you are quite incorrect. Most states have laws requiring you to carry your driver's license when you are driving and these laws can assess a fine. If the cop lets you off he is doing you a favor.

      In many states, all adults are required to carry proof of identity at all times when they are in public. This is more important than you think, and it is just as much for your safety as it is to protect the public interest. Joggers who have suffered heart attacks have been "John Does" for
      • I think you're mistaken on this. In fact there was a recent Supreme Court of the United States case which considered the issue of whether a police officer could even demand your name, much less a state-issued identification. It was narrowly held that a name could be demanded if state law provided such. Anything more, it suggests, is probably unconstitutional.

        The case was Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada.

        This post is not intended as legal advice and should not be relied on as such.
  • Here's some more direct info on the card from Minnesota DVS [state.mn.us].

  • Lic. was not originally intended to be a ID (Score:3, Insightful)

    by StateOfTheUnion ( 762194 ) on Friday December 10, 2004 @10:53AM (#11051778) Homepage
    I think that this is indicative of a problem throughout the United States that has snuck up on the government.

    Driver's Licenses were intended to be exactly that, a license or permit that demonstrates that one is legally permitted to drive. They happened to have a photo of the person on them . . . how this became an official government identification card was something of an accident. Private groups started using the driver's license as ID to cash checks becuase it provided some level of photo identification . . . but there was no common standard for confirming identity when applying for a license. Some states were very slack about this (For example, in Virginia until recently, one only needed a form from a lawyer asserting one's identity with no official documents whatsoever.)

    It's good to see that states are recognizing that the driver's license is a de facto identification card in the US and they are taking counterfeiting seriously.

  • It's only a piece of paper (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OhHellWithIt ( 756826 ) * on Friday December 10, 2004 @10:56AM (#11051807) Journal
    All this hullaballoo (sp?) about encoding information in driver's licenses, etc., misses the point. The purpose of an identification card is to give the person/machine examining it assurance (to the required level of certainty) that the person presenting it is who he says he is. However far you want to go in determining that, it doesn't do a thing to enhance national or provincial security, nor does it do anything to tell the state trooper who just pulled you over that you have a sawed-off shotgun under your seat or a USB disk drive in your pocket.

    Holography and RFID make the document harder to counterfeit. Some biometric information, like the color of the person's eyes, height, weight, etc., is useful in establishing that the bearer is the person belonging to the ID.

    Nonetheless, none of this is worth a whit if the ID is issued fraudulently. Here in Virginia, we had a problem with DMV clerks issuing driver's licenses to anyone for the price of a bribe, as well as notaries public who would vouch for anyone for a fee. The licenses themselves were machine-readable, with some kind of special seal on them that would be difficult to counterfeit, and included the information I mentioned above. A policeman could be reasonably sure the driver is the person in the photo. But, at bottom, because the controls on the license issuing process were bad, and the identification accepted by DMV was so weak, it was possible for anyone to get a real Virginia license or ID card that would be acceptable as genuine anywhere.

  • Alberta (Score:2, Informative)

    by Redfrost ( 202676 )
    Alberta (Canada) came out with a new driver's licence a few years ago. It was quite a step forward from the traditional print-it-off-on-paper-then-laminate-it licence. Check it out:

    http://www3.gov.ab.ca/gs/driverslicence/
    "An original. Just like you." Glad my taxes went towards picking that. Probably had a committee set up and daily meetings for 3 months to come up with it.

    Security features used on the card:
    http://www3.gov.ab.ca/gs/driverslicence/se c urity.h tml

    Picture of the card:
    http://www3.gov.ab.
  • Or some other biometric unique identifier.

    With the advent of more/cheaper biometric technology, would it not be worthwhile to actually stick the unique electronic data of your thumb print in the card and equip Police, credit card readers etc, with thumb scanners?

    Personally I don't have an issue with being able to prove who I am when I need to. I imagine the crowd here will mostly think this is a bad idea.
  • The US Federal Reserve has just announced a new space-age digital holographic RFID watermarking scheme to prevent currency counterfeiting. The technology will be used exclusively on US $1 bills (the most frequently counterfeited), and cost approximately $35 per bill to implement.

  • Seems like overkill (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jimfrost ( 58153 ) * <jimf@frostbytes.com> on Friday December 10, 2004 @11:43AM (#11052282) Homepage
    I have long wondered about all these technologically marvelous anti-counterfeiting driver's licenses. Is driver's license counterfeiting really common enough -- or serious enough -- to make these technologies economically worthwhile?

    Sure, 20 years ago I <cough> knew some people who might have made fake Pennsylvania driver's licenses in order to purchase liquor. Back in those days the license was nothing but a Polaroid, very easy to clone. But when the states started going to those funny reflective laminations then cloning became a losing proposition (not that it was particularly hard to duplicate those, either, but it was even harder to make them look bad enough to be real).

    Even when it was really easy to fake a license it was more or less a toss-up as to whether to make the license itself or the supporting documentation. For more than a decade now the easiest way to get a fake license (so I hear) is to print up the supporting docs and go get a real one. Way easier. They give out driver's licenses like candy on Halloween, after all.

    This kind of fraud is certainly commonplace around colleges, but I find it hard to get worked up over some kids getting hold of alcohol. (It's pathetic that our drinking age is 21 yet the driver's license age is 16 -- that is a recipe for disaster. If anything, the two should be switched.) In a traffic stop the police call it in, in which case the computer wouldn't know about a false ID and it'd be obvious what's going on -- no matter if the ID is a fancy thing or just a slip of paper. Heck, they don't even need the physical driver's license anymore in most places.

    So I figure the theory here is that it's for preventing identity theft (eg cashing checks in someone else's name -- although the reliance on driver's licenses, obtained via privilege rather than right, for that process is a rant in and of itself) and that doesn't seem like it's worth a lot of ID technology investment either.

    I suspect that many pour misguided souls think that harder-to-fake driver's licenses would stop something like 9/11, in which case I would point out that the 9/11 hijackers had fraudulently obtained real driver's licenses, just like the college kids do. They were legitimate so far as the system knew.

    Until they get around to fixing the lack of any real identity check during the process of applying for a license, not an easy or inexpensive thing to do, all these technologies are worthless.

  • Big Brother the Grocery Clerk (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gelfling ( 6534 ) on Friday December 10, 2004 @01:08PM (#11053331) Homepage Journal
    Shit just what we need another device to track us in the complete absence of either a coherent process that controls how they are handed out in the first place AND any sort of legislative brakes on the data that is embedded on it or what data its usage gathers.

  • This is moot now (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Beautyon ( 214567 ) on Friday December 10, 2004 @03:29PM (#11054988) Homepage
    ...Beginning in 2005, the Department of Homeland Security will issue new uniformity regulations to the States requiring that all Drivers Licenses and Birth Certificates meet minimal Federal Standards with regard to US citizen information, including biometric security provisions...

    Because the federal government now controls the universal standard for Drivers Licences. [prisonplanet.com]

    Its clear that the house should never pass a bill with more than 10 pages; these provisions were buried in a 3000 page bill, which no legislator read before voting.

    Each congressman should be forced to read every page of the bills that they sign into law, and they should be made to sign each page indicating that they hare read the page.

    Then again, no one in america cares about any of this, and for certain, at least 59,054,087 people will think that its a good idea.

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