[Infowarrior] - REAL ID: A real hard act to follow

[Richard Forno]

A real hard act to follow
States view the Real ID Act as an unreasonable and costly challenge, but
some officials see in it the glimmer of a silver lining
http://www.fcw.com/article94987-06-26-06-Print

BY John Pulley
Published on June 26, 2006

Teresa Takai did not receive a self-destructing taped message inquiring if
she would accept the mission. The Real ID Act suddenly appeared as an
unfunded mandate from Congress to overhaul states¹ driver¹s licensing on a
tight deadline.

The act, signed into law May 11, 2005, seeks to prevent illegal aliens and
would-be terrorists from getting driver¹s licenses. It forces states, within
three years of the act¹s passage, to require documentation that goes beyond
what most states ask license applicants to produce: a photo identity
document, documentation of birth, proof of Social Security number, and
documentation of an applicant¹s name and address of principal residence.

In addition, the law requires states to verify those documents and keep
digital copies ‹ two provisions that would necessitate more robust storage
capacity and connections between disparate databases than most states have.
Among other provisions, the Real ID Act also calls for tamper-proof,
machine-readable licenses manufactured in secure areas by employees with
security clearances.

The law will affect an estimated 240 million driver¹s licenses. Yet with the
deadline for deployment less than two years away, the federal government
still has not issued technical requirements to guide states.

³We think it will be a struggle, to some degree, to even get started by
then,² said Tom Jarrett, Delaware¹s secretary of technology and chief
information technology officer. He is also chairman of the National
Association of State Chief Information Officers¹ Real ID Work Group.

Takai, Michigan¹s CIO, is in a double bind. She is in the midst of updating
a 30-year-old computer system that state officials use to manage driver¹s
licenses. If she had the luxury of time, she would postpone the upgrade to
ensure the new system¹s compatibility with Real ID¹s requirements. But with
retirement looming for the few remaining employees who are proficient in an
older technology, Takai can¹t wait.

She is running two races with separate clocks and finish lines. Her strategy
is to upgrade the old system and hope it will be compatible with
requirements of the Real ID Act. ³All we can do is guess at what we think
the implementation is going to be,² she said. ³If we get it wrong, we¹re
going to have a brand new system that we will have to go back in and
change.²

Takai¹s dilemma is unusually thorny, but states generally agree that
implementing the Real ID Act poses big problems because of insufficient time
and money. ³States believe that this time frame is unreasonable, costly and
potentially impossible to meet,² the National Governors Association, the
National Conference of State Legislatures and the American Association of
Motor Vehicle Administrators, wrote in an April letter to the Homeland
Security Department.

In addition, CIOs rue the federal government¹s unwillingness to seek ideas
from states about how to implement the Real ID Act ‹ an attitude that is not
without precedent.

³We¹re all a little bit gun shy because of the [Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act of 1996] implementation,² Takai said. ³The states
felt we could have reduced the impact on ourselves if we had been able to
work with [the Department of Health and Human Services] to define how that
implementation would take place.²

HIPAA established national standards for electronic health care transactions
and national identifiers for providers, health plans and employers, in part
to secure the privacy of health data. ³We¹re sort of doing a déjà vu here,²
Takai said.

Until the federal government issues requirements for new driver¹s licenses,
no one can say how much it will cost to implement the Real ID Act. Citizens
Against Government Waste, a taxpayer advocacy group in Washington, D.C.,
released a report last fall that projects a total price of $17.4 billion if
the government requires radio frequency identification chips, like those
embedded in new passports, to become a component of driver¹s licenses.

Some state officials say mandatory inclusion of RFID in driver¹s licenses
seems unlikely at present. Otto Doll, South Dakota¹s CIO, said that if the
new licenses must have a biometric component, it would probably be
fingerprints.

Even without embedded chips, however, compliance with the act will have
significant costs. Some state CIOs have heard that the new licenses will be
made of an expensive polycarbonate material manufactured by a single
supplier. Polycarbonate is a transparent thermoplastic that is resistant to
heat, cold and breakage.

Verifying and storing digital copies of applicants¹ source documents won¹t
be cheap either. The National Association for Public Health Statistics and
Information Systems (NAPHSIS) is testing a previously discarded system that
would allow states to verify applicant¹s birth certificates in less than 10
seconds. The Electronic Verification of Vital Events (EVVE) was created to
improve management of states¹ birth records and death certificates, but the
project was shelved because payments demanded by states in exchange for
putting birth information in the system was more than the Social Security
Administration was willing to pay.

An advisory committee of federal agencies that might use EVVE met in June to
consider an acceptable pricing structure, said Garland Land, NAPHSIS¹
executive director.

The Real ID Act¹s requirement that states not issue a driver¹s license to
someone who currently holds a license in another state demands a system for
cross-checking data among states¹ Department of Motor Vehicles offices. They
would most likely use pointer systems, similar to an online sex offender
registry, Doll said. Unlike the Social Security Administration¹s centralized
database of Social Security numbers, the national sex-offender public
registry connects data from multiple sources.

If states are required to store digital images of applicants¹ documents for
as long as 10 years, storage capacity and costs will further strain states¹
resources. ³We are nearing the petabyte stage in the little state of
Wisconsin,² said Matthew Miszewski, the state¹s CIO. ³They better give us
some money. Space ain¹t free.²

Acquiring equipment to make the licenses, securing the license-manufacturing
area, screening workers and adding employees to handle the influx of
customers at state DMV offices are expected to increase costs.

Financial issues aside, state CIOs say they desperately need clear
directives from the federal government to begin implementation and avoid
potential compatibility problems. ³There is no lack of creativity as to how
you could accomplish the goals outlined in the act,² Miszewski said.
³Without guidance, you will have 50 different systems.²

The challenges will vary throughout jurisdictions. California, with more
licensed drivers than other states, faces a volume issue that Doll said will
require a major effort to implement the new law. His state has a different
concern. Seventy percent of South Dakota¹s land area falls under the U.S.
Census Bureau¹s frontier classification.

A step below the rural designation, frontier status designates population
density of fewer than seven people per square mile. In the state capital,
Pierre, the DMV office is open only three days a week. The rest of the time,
employees go on the road to issue and renew licenses to people who are
nowhere near a DMV office. The Real ID Act¹s onerous requirements could kill
that service, with predictable results, Doll said.

³People aren¹t going to drive 200 miles² to get a license, he said.

Despite the drawbacks, the law could have a silver lining. Once the act is
implemented, states will be able to offer more sophisticated digital
services, said Miszewski, who envisions a system of cross-functional
identification that will analyze customer transactions and offer additional
services as needed.

As it is now, a family that moves to Wisconsin and wants to take a vacation
at one of the state¹s lakes must make several stops to acquire necessary
licenses, including a Wisconsin driver¹s license, state tags for the car, a
boat license and, depending on the craft¹s size, a license for the trailer
on which it sits.

³We don¹t do a very good job of customer-services relation management,²
Miszewski said. ³The opportunity to create digital identities for citizens
in the state is for state CIOsŠthe key to the kingdom.²

Pulley is a freelance writer based in Arlington, Va.


States must meet federal standards

The Real ID Act of 2005 requires states to comply by May 2008 with stringent
new federal standards for issuing driver¹s licenses. Privacy advocates say
the law creates a national identification card. They add that newly linked
databases could jeopardize the security of license holders¹ personal
information. Proponents of the revamped licenses counter that more rigorous
standards are necessary to secure the country¹s borders and thwart would-be
terrorists.

In accordance with the law, states must meet the new driver¹s license
standards by:

# Including a full name, date of birth, gender, driver¹s license or
identification card number, digital photograph, address of principal
residence and signature on the license, and physical security features to
prevent tampering, counterfeiting or duplication.

# Requiring applicants to present a photo identity document, documentation
showing date of birth, proof of a Social Security account number or
verification that the person is not eligible for a Social Security account
number, and documentation showing name and address of principal residence.

# Verifying that applicants are U.S. citizens or in the country legally and
verifying with the issuing agency the validity and completeness of each
document presented by applicants. Those agencies must retain digital images
of applicants and source documents for as long as 10 years.

# Checking applicants¹ Social Security account numbers with the Social
Security Administration and refusing licenses to applicants holding a
driver¹s license in another state.

# Providing physical security in agencies that produce licenses, including
security clearances for workers.

# Sharing driver¹s license data with all other states.

‹ John Pulley