Industry Insight: REAL ID For Real

Even as the Department of Homeland Security considers standards to serve as a road map for implementation of the law in the 50 states and six territories, the misinformed are painting this plan as a national identity card or a way to gather information into a single database.

Yet amid the many misconceptions about what the law is and what it is supposed to do, we must not forget the lesson learned from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. On that day, hijackers boarded airplanes with falsely obtained driver's licenses and carried out the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history.

Congress passed the REAL ID Act to encourage states to verify supporting documents like birth certificates, social security cards or other source documentation before issuing this widely used piece of proof about who a person is. As a result, Americans will have licenses that serve as stronger identity credentials. The new cards will also be important tools to fight other societal ills as well, like identity theft, other forms of fraud and underage drinking and smoking.

Some states are complaining that it will cost them millions of dollars to comply with the law, which adopts recommendations from the 9-11 Commission. Other critics say it is an invitation to violate a person's privacy to gather information about someone and keep it in a database. However, state licenses already are used to establishing a person's identity in a wide variety of ways. Have you tried getting on a commercial flight without ID or opening a bank account or entering a government building? The reality is that protections today are spotty for the majority of adult Americans that regularly use their licenses as identification.

Implemented properly, REAL ID will make the system of issuing identification documents safer, not more threatening. That is no small promise in the wake of revelations showing how easy it has been to get a driver's license under false pretenses in many parts of the country. The REAL ID Act does not call for a national database of driver information, and each state will own its information repository where data on its citizens are kept. States will continue to collect information about applicants as they do now. And one state will not be able to "fish" through the records of another state.

Still, Montana and Washington have already refused to comply with the act. Others like Maine and Idaho have passed resolutions against complying without additional federal dollars. But the public deserves to understand this first-ever overhaul of the way licenses are issued across the country. And they need to know that there are plenty of ways to protect a person's security in much the same way that their tax returns, medical records and other data are protected using the latest technology security to prevent unauthorized access.

It is premature, ill-advised and plain wrong to shout that REAL ID will compromise security. Technology tools such as a document and knowledge based authentication solutions, card readers, federated database systems and encryption technology can help protect a person's information. States may independently decide to use biometrics in their driver's license process, but there is no "Big Brother" initiative here, no requirement to create a large centralized database.

Yes, there will be a cost to the states, but DHS will allow them to use up to 20 percent of a state's homeland security grant program funds to defray those costs. Furthermore, prospects are looking up for more serious cooperation between the federal and state governments in sharing the funding burden as some key members of Congress are expressing support for additional federal funding.

We no longer live in a fairy tale world, and the REAL ID is one way to help protect Americans from the evils lurking about or even from the consequences of identity theft. It is a far smaller cost than the theft of millions of dollars using fraudulent licenses or another terrorist attack helped along by fraudulent identity papers.