Are you a privacy victim -- part 5

Has anyone used your identity to cash a check?  Get Medicare?  Get a job?  Chances are that the crooks used a driver's license to do that -- either a fake made with Photoshop or a real license obtained with fake "breeder" documents.  Breeder documents like birth certificates are even easier to forge than a license.

How come it's so easy to get a license to carry out these frauds?  Because privacy groups have been fighting to slow down or repeal REAL ID.

Here's an excerpt from my upcoming testimony on Wednesday, opposing efforts to gut REAL ID:

Critics claim that REAL ID is a threat to privacy.  This is false. 

The claim that REAL ID threatens privacy has helped to stall driver’s license security.  But the result of the delay is not more privacy, it is less.  People whose identity has been stolen with the help of a fake or fraudulent driver’s license are victims of the delay – indeed, they are victims of the “privacy” advocates who have campaigned against REAL ID.  They’ve suffered real losses, and a real invasion of their privacy, because people who claim to speak for privacy have been fighting to prevent good driver’s license security.  

Repealing or gutting the requirements of REAL ID will create hundreds of thousands more privacy victims over the next few years. A substantial number of identity thieves have used fake driver’s licenses to commit their crimes, and making licenses harder to forge will make this crime harder to perpetrate.  By requiring verification of documents such as birth certificates, REAL ID will make it harder for criminals to forge documents that allow them to obtain identifications.  Additionally, three levels of security feature that REAL ID requires on every card will make it harder for criminals to forge the identifications themselves. 

I have yet to hear a coherent explanation of the claim that REAL ID is bad for privacy.  Surely privacy is not improved by a bad identification system.  The closest thing to a coherent argument is based on the false claim that REAL ID would create a national database of individuals’ personal information.  Under REAL ID, state DMVs, not the federal government, will continue to control driver’s license data.  REAL ID simply allows  

 

Moreover, thanks to REAL ID, that data will get additional protection from disclosure.  State DMVs will have to meet tough new security standards for that data.  Among other measures, states will have to ensure the physical security of facilities used to create identification documents and store personal information, perform background checks on employees involved in the manufacture of REAL ID identifications, and formulate emergency response plans.

 

REAL ID does not create a national identification card.  States will continue to issue identifications, and no one is required to have one of these cards.  If anything, REAL ID eliminates the need for a national identity card because individuals will have secure state-issued identification.