Driver's Licenses with Digital Watermarks

ForceQuit writes "MIT Technology Review reports that Minnesota will begin issuing a unique driver's license designed to combat counterfeiting. It includes a reflective image (of a loon) that appears to float above and below the card when the license is tilted. It also includes an invisible, digital watermark capable of carrying security data such as date of birth. The information would be readable only through a computerized scanner, which law enforcement officers could carry."

Comments

Driver's license security

[PhotoJim]

This sounds like a good idea. Identity fraud is a serious problem. I work at an insurance office in Saskatchewan (Canada) that does license issuing among other things. We get all sorts of efforts to acquire fake ID, it's rather pathetic. Almost all of the efforts involve trying to drink under age, but these days the reality is that people will try to get fake identities for less savoury purposes. It's hard to criticize this move by Minnesota.

Finally, a sensible state

[Qzukk]

None of this encoding my life history on the card, or letting my card broadcast my identification to everyone sitting on the bus with me. This state has it right. If the cop wants my information, he can stop me and ask me for it. The things on the computer readable portion are on the card anyway, so it lets the cop scan me in and let me go on my merry way faster, without the hassle of having my DL number mistyped and coming up as some wanted murderer.

Maybe I should look into moving.

It's only a piece of paper

[OhHellWithIt]

All this hullaballoo (sp?) about encoding information in driver's licenses, etc., misses the point. The purpose of an identification card is to give the person/machine examining it assurance (to the required level of certainty) that the person presenting it is who he says he is. However far you want to go in determining that, it doesn't do a thing to enhance national or provincial security, nor does it do anything to tell the state trooper who just pulled you over that you have a sawed-off shotgun under your seat or a USB disk drive in your pocket.

Holography and RFID make the document harder to counterfeit. Some biometric information, like the color of the person's eyes, height, weight, etc., is useful in establishing that the bearer is the person belonging to the ID.

Nonetheless, none of this is worth a whit if the ID is issued fraudulently. Here in Virginia, we had a problem with DMV clerks issuing driver's licenses to anyone for the price of a bribe, as well as notaries public who would vouch for anyone for a fee. The licenses themselves were machine-readable, with some kind of special seal on them that would be difficult to counterfeit, and included the information I mentioned above. A policeman could be reasonably sure the driver is the person in the photo. But, at bottom, because the controls on the license issuing process were bad, and the identification accepted by DMV was so weak, it was possible for anyone to get a real Virginia license or ID card that would be acceptable as genuine anywhere.

Re:Great Move, With a Caveat

[Xcott Craver]

You're assuming that the data on the driver's license will be correct---i.e., that it will list the bearer's current visa status.

Will they get a free replacement whenever their status changes? Will we ever see someone mistakenly arrested because his/her license is out of date?

If you're here unlawfully, sure you're breaking the law. If you're here lawfully but your driver's license disagrees, is that breaking the law? Does the law require you to properly maintain every thing upon which some bureaucrat decides to plaster your visa status?

This is the same problem we have with databases of sex offenders. It may sound like a great idea, if you assume the database is accurate. But entries get stale, and suddenly people start tossing bricks through your window and beating up your kids at school.

Xcott

Seems like overkill

[jimfrost]

I have long wondered about all these technologically marvelous anti-counterfeiting driver's licenses. Is driver's license counterfeiting really common enough -- or serious enough -- to make these technologies economically worthwhile?

Sure, 20 years ago I <cough> knew some people who might have made fake Pennsylvania driver's licenses in order to purchase liquor. Back in those days the license was nothing but a Polaroid, very easy to clone. But when the states started going to those funny reflective laminations then cloning became a losing proposition (not that it was particularly hard to duplicate those, either, but it was even harder to make them look bad enough to be real).

Even when it was really easy to fake a license it was more or less a toss-up as to whether to make the license itself or the supporting documentation. For more than a decade now the easiest way to get a fake license (so I hear) is to print up the supporting docs and go get a real one. Way easier. They give out driver's licenses like candy on Halloween, after all.

This kind of fraud is certainly commonplace around colleges, but I find it hard to get worked up over some kids getting hold of alcohol. (It's pathetic that our drinking age is 21 yet the driver's license age is 16 -- that is a recipe for disaster. If anything, the two should be switched.) In a traffic stop the police call it in, in which case the computer wouldn't know about a false ID and it'd be obvious what's going on -- no matter if the ID is a fancy thing or just a slip of paper. Heck, they don't even need the physical driver's license anymore in most places.

So I figure the theory here is that it's for preventing identity theft (eg cashing checks in someone else's name -- although the reliance on driver's licenses, obtained via privilege rather than right, for that process is a rant in and of itself) and that doesn't seem like it's worth a lot of ID technology investment either.

I suspect that many pour misguided souls think that harder-to-fake driver's licenses would stop something like 9/11, in which case I would point out that the 9/11 hijackers had fraudulently obtained real driver's licenses, just like the college kids do. They were legitimate so far as the system knew.

Until they get around to fixing the lack of any real identity check during the process of applying for a license, not an easy or inexpensive thing to do, all these technologies are worthless.