In June 2011, I noted here how a new cardless national ID system was forming up using state driver license data. It hasn’t gone very far. Passage of an immigration reform bill containing a national E‑Verify requirement would slam down the gas pedal.

But a few days ago, Idaho became the third state in the union to sign up for the Department of Homeland Security’s RIDE (Records and Information from DMVs for E‑Verify) program, which is administered by the ID‐​friendly American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. Idaho joins Mississippi and Florida in volunteering state driver information to the DHS.

As the full name of the program suggests, RIDE is an “add‐​on” to E‑Verify, the government’s highly problematic system for “internal enforcement” of immigration law via government background checks. RIDE is intended to let the E‑Verify system check the authenticity of driver licenses that are typically provided as one of the forms of ID during the broader verification process. E‑Verify’s problems are legion—I documented them in my 2008 paper, “Franz Kafka’s Solution to Illegal Immigration”—and we highlighted them again on Capitol Hill in March.

Much like mass‐​scale license plate scanning, the RIDE program represents the application of technology and systems developed for one purpose to vastly different ones. The RIDE program takes state driver licensing data—which is for driver licensing and traffic law enforcment—and turns it over to the DHS for federal law enforcement and the creation of a national ID.

In 2007, Idaho was the second state in the nation to reject the REAL ID Act, our national ID law. The Idaho House and Senate passed a resolution condemning that effort to put all Americans into a national ID system. But the bureaucrats appear to have waited out the legislature. With most people’s attention elsewhere, the Idaho Transportation Department teamed up with DHS officials to move forward with a national ID.

After the DHS has tapped into Idahoans’ driver data, there is no guarantee that the uses of it would be limited to E‑Verify. Mission creep is a law of gravity in government, and it’s likely over time that E‑Verify and Idaho driver data will be put to new and interesting uses by the federal government. Expect the DHS to get a lot more familiar with you and your driver license data if mandatory E‑Verify comes into effect and RIDE continues to grow.