Real ID on horizon for licenses

By LILLIAN KAFKA, Potomac News & Manassas Journal Messenger
Published: April 24, 2008

As the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles learns more about Real ID requirements, holders of driver's licenses should prepare to stand in line.

By 2017, all Virginia residents will have to replace their ID cards and driver's licenses in person at DMVs across the state. Younger license holders will have to replace theirs by 2014.

With the changes come an estimated 200 percent increase in wait times, said Melanie Stokes, DMV spokes-woman.

The 9/11 Commission recommended the changes and Congress passed the Real ID Act in 2005.

The Department of Homeland Security is charging the DMV and similar agencies in every state with making major changes in document capturing and verification operations.

If a state doesn't begin complying with certain DHS rules by next summer, residents of those states won't be able to use their driver's license to fly on an airplane, said Amy Kudwa, DHS spokeswoman. Virginia has already met those requirements.

Virginia's General Assembly this year appropriated $5.2 million to start the changes, and expects to spend that much more every year forward as Real ID cards become the norm throughout the U.S.

LONGER LINES

In total, wait times at DMV offices could at least double.

"Everyone will need to visit a DMV office before those deadlines so they'll have a lot more people getting those Real ID-compliance licenses," Stokes said.

DMV tellers will continue to ask for a number of documents to prove legal presence in Virginia, then capture a digital image of those documents.

New customer service employees will be hired and all existing employees will have to be trained on using interstate communication systems that don't yet exist.

Kudwa stressed that there will not be a national database of vital records.

"It would all happen electronically and within a matter of moments," she said. "That mechanism does not exist today for all states, although it does for commercial driver's licenses."

DHS will fund the electronic communications hub that would be used to query each state's records, she said.

DMVs will be required to use that hub to contact agencies that create birth certificates and marriage licenses, for instance, to verify their legitimacy. That's why customers can expect longer lines.

"That will take much longer than it does today," Stokes said.

REAL ID COMPLIANCE

"A lot of the requirements under [Virginia's] legal presence law are going to be similar under Real ID, but I can't be sure because DMV hasn't finished going through the requirements," Stokes said.

Virginia is working toward compliance, but because officials haven't analyzed all of the Real ID require-ments, they won't say for sure that they're agreeing to them yet, she said.

What they are sure of is its new "central issue" program, designed in anticipation of the new federal mandate.

New Real ID-compliant driver's licenses will be made of polycarbonate, created in a central office then mailed to Virginia residents, instead of handed over on the spot.

One of the goals of the Real ID Act is to increase security and the central issue design reduces the number of people who know how the laser engraving works, Stokes said.

Kudwa said preventing identity theft is the law's major goal.

"Fake IDs are not just used by kids trying to buy beer," she said. "It can be people with very serious criminal intentions for identity theft."

The fraudulent documents a terrorist uses to move around the country and rent apartments, for example, are just as important as weapons they use, Kudwa said.

To further prevent fraud, the process for getting a new license is going to change, and some transactions won't be available online anymore, Stokes said.

Virginia residents will have to bring their documents to the DMV, then wait about a week to receive a new card in the mail.

By 2014, anyone under the age of 50 won't be able to fly on an airplane or enter a federal facility without a Real ID-compliant license or ID card. People older than 50 will have to meet that requirement by 2017.

CARD SECURITY

The new laser-engraved licenses will have a number of security features. They will include tamper-resistant features such as a hologram or micro filament.

Although Virginia doesn't know what the new licenses will look like, Kudwa said each state's license can maintain a unique design.

"A Virginia license will continue to look like Virginia license," she said.

As some states move toward a system to provide residents with Real ID-compliant licenses and ID cards, some states bordering Canada and Mexico are looking at enhanced driver's licenses.

These optional driver's licenses are intended to speed border crossings because they contain a radio frequency ID that can be read up to 20 or 30 feet away.

Border Patrol agents can check the citizenship of a person with one of the enhanced driver's licenses, which were created to comply with the federal Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.

Only U.S. citizens can obtain an enhanced driver's license.

Enhanced driver's licenses are "an excellent recommendation from the Department of Homeland Secu-rity and it's something Virginia DMV wants to work toward," Stokes said.

Currently Virginia does not have the resources to create these driver's licenses, she said.

Washington state began issuing these cards in January and Arizona could issue them as early as this year, Kudwa said.

Vermont and New York have committed to producing enhanced driver's licenses with embedded radio fre-quency IDs, according to the Customs and Border Patrol. Texas, California and Michigan are in discussions with DHS to develop enhanced driver's license projects.

Staff writer Lillian Kafka can be reached at 703-878-8065.