“We are trying to reach some of the privacy groups to try to clear up some of the misunderstandings about what this data base really is, what it can do.”
— Linda Lewis

Driver’s licenses may be tougher to obtain
Measures aimed at curbing easy ID access
By Ted Bridis
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Lines at state offices for driver’s licenses may soon get a lot longer because of new security recommendations, and an applicant may need to make more than a single visit.

A trade group for top licensing officials in the United States and Canada, the American Association for Motor Vehicle Administrators, urged states Monday to crack down on procedures for obtaining licenses and identity cards.

Worried that licenses are too easily obtained by terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants, the group endorsed a uniform licensing process for handing out licenses in every state. It also wants to link the nation’s computer databases on motorists, which some privacy experts warn could be a step toward a de facto national identity-card system.

“Each state does it differently,” said Betty Serian, the chairwoman for the group’s task force on ID security. “How can a bank teller in Maine be expected to know what a California license really looks like?”

The association, based in Arlington, Va., said Monday that state officials should scrutinize each prospective licensee’s documents more closely and in some cases demand extra proof of identity. It also urged prosecutors to throw the book at applicants and officials caught cheating.

Some hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks against New York and Washington obtained driver’s licenses and state identification cards in Northern Virginia by lying about their residency statuses.

While the changes were aimed at tightening the nation’s security, officials acknowledged they could lead to new inconveniences within state bureaucracies already tarnished by stereotypes of inefficiency.

“If you’re applying for your first license, you should not be expecting to walk out the door with a license in hand,” said the group’s president, Linda Lewis. “New checks may require additional verification. As we seek to improve the licensing process, you may expect closer scrutiny of the documents you provide.”

The group did not recommend that states adopt any specific anti-forgery technologies, such as adding digital fingerprints on licenses. Lewis said the association is reviewing “everything, every option available to us” and may publish recommendations on security features by year’s end.

Privacy experts worry that a broadly adopted new standard, especially one that would allow machines to check state ID cards, could let authorities easily track people nationwide using state licenses people already are accustomed to carrying. A top official with the American Civil Liberties Union, Barry Steinhardt, said Monday that Americans don’t trust state licensing officials “to keep many of the most intimate details of their lives safe, secure and free of error.”

The trade association on Monday described privacy concerns as “misinformation... about this huge database in the sky.”

“We’re trying to reach some of the privacy groups to try to clear up some of the misunderstandings about what this database really is, what it can do,” Lewis said.

The Transportation Department is under instructions from Congress to develop rules for states to encode data onto driver’s licenses to prevent criminals from using them as false identification.

In a report accompanying spending legislation, Congress told the department it would “strongly encourage” officials there to develop guidelines quickly to store electronically information on state licenses.

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