In this USA Today story, identity‐based security mavens sputter about the availability of high‐quality fake IDs that include digital holograms, credit‐card quality plastics, and specialty inks found in “more secure” drivers’ licenses. Along with adding technical security measures to cards, states that once made driver licensing easier reversed course and discontinued issuing licenses over the counter so they could new‐fangle their IDs. All this inconvenience and expense has done nothing but require bad guys (and college students) to order their driver’s licenses at sites like ID Chief.
One could have predicted all this:
The more valuable a driver’s license is for access to work, mobility, goods, and services, the more likely people will seek to acquire this document illegally. Reforms … may “stiffen” state‐issued identification card processes, but they leave it brittle.
Meanwhile the expense and inconvenience of restricted access to identification cards will fall on all Americans—including the ones who need drivers’ licenses for the simple purpose of driving. Honest, law‐abiding Americans will suffer impingement on their freedom of action, their individual power, and their security from identity‐based frauds. The REAL ID Act is full of reforms that do not fix.
Instead of “strengthening” our national identification system, policies that reduce the value of breaking identification systems will improve identification. Jujitsu is needed much more than brawn.
That’s yours truly, writing in the 2006 Cato book, Identity Crisis: How Identification is Overused and Misunderstood.
