[Infowarrior] - Officials: PR campaign may boost Real ID popularity

Fri Sep 28 00:44:19 UTC 2007

Officials say PR campaign may boost Real ID popularity

By Anne Broache
http://www.news.com/Officials-say-PR-campaign-may-boost-Real-ID-popularity/2
100-1029_3-6209786.html

Story last modified Tue Sep 25 05:44:38 PDT 2007

WASHINGTON--As controversy rages over forthcoming federal Real ID
requirements, state officials should be plotting public relations strategies
to counteract the well-publicized rebellion, past and present state motor
vehicle administrators advised their colleagues Monday.

Civil liberties and privacy groups, as well as organizations like the
National Governors Association, have attacked the 2005 law as insufficiently
protective of privacy and too costly to implement. But that's exactly the
sort of message motor vehicle departments need to offset with their own
materials trumpeting the plan's perceived benefits, suggested Lucinda
Babers, interim director of the District of Columbia DMV, and Betty Serian,
a retired Pennsylvania Department of Transportation official who now runs a
private consulting firm.

"I think it's a classical textbook case of good communications planning,
knowing who your audience is, and working that into your implementation plan
for Real ID," Serian said during a panel discussion on the first day of the
Government ID Technology Summit here. About 100 state and federal officials
and representatives from technology vendors were in attendance at the
conference, whose lead sponsor was Digimarc, a company that specializes in
"secure identity and media management solutions."

The Department of Homeland Security plans to issue final rules in the fall,
but draft rules say that starting on May 11, 2008, Americans will need a
federally approved, "machine readable" ID card to travel on an airplane,
open a bank account, collect Social Security payments or take advantage of
nearly any government service. (States that agree in advance to abide by the
rules have until 2013 to comply.)

Largely because of the undertaking's projected cost and what they view as
insufficient federal funding to meet it, more than 30 states have either
introduced or adopted some type of legislation or resolution that rejects or
criticizes Congress's Real ID mandate, which is derived from 9/11 Commission
recommendations.

But even those states that fall into the anti-Real ID category should be
thinking about how to make their residents feel happier about the
requirements, the conference speakers said.

Sample messages could include, according to Serian: "It's an improvement to
your existing process, it's a way to do the right things for the right
reason, it will help prevent identity theft." (Serian said she is "active"
with the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators and was once
the chairwoman of its special task force on identification security.)

The identity-theft defense is a familiar one. Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff has argued that a Real ID-compliant document will be harder
to forge than existing driver's licenses and other state-issued
identification cards because DMV administrators will be required to verify
the authenticity of birth certificates and other pertinent identity
documents against new databases. Opponents, however, argue that unless
stricter security requirements are imposed, it won't be difficult for people
to swipe personal information from the cards' requisite two-dimensional bar
code and use it for unintended purposes.

"Try to get that positive message out about what it can do for us," Babers
said. "What this seems to be doing for us is getting us all up to a certain
level in terms of technology and processes."

Despite uncertainty about how the rules will look, Serian said "the time is
definitely now" for states to strategize over how they'll persuade the
public that Real ID isn't a threat. Motor vehicle departments could use the
pool of addresses already available to them to send out direct mailings with
such assurances, she said. Babers suggested that voluntary e-mail lists that
some DMVs already use for periodic alerts could be another method. Another
potential vehicle is through public service announcements aired in a
continuous loop at DMV locations, where a captive audience of customers has
little choice but to watch.

To reach an even wider audience, Serian suggested DMVs also consider using
some of the federal taxpayer-funded grants set aside for Real ID--which many
states argue are inadequate--to take out paid advertising. She and Babers
said states may also want to approach vendors of the technology they plan to
use to come into Real ID compliance for help.

But such a marketing campaign may be less than realistic given the current
funding climate for many states, countered one audience member who said he
represented the Rhode Island Department of Motor Vehicles. He said his
state's initial cost estimate for getting the program up and running is $12
million, and the state already is expecting a $200 to $300 million deficit.
Homeland Security projects the cost of Real ID for states and taxpayers over
the next 10 years will surpass $23 billion.

"Your mailing list isn't going to be free," the audience member said.
"You're going to have to prepare the document, mail it out, that's a million
dollars if you're a state of a million people, which we are."