Fake driving licenses a shocker

By: staff
Date: 2003-09-15

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A U.S. congressional investigation team got a rude shock when they checked to see how difficult it is to get a fake driver's license. Not only was it not difficult to obtain a license, in some cases the state DMV officials were quite helpful!

The investigation began in July 2002, when a team from the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of congress, set out to test the system that issues driver licenses. Agents operating undercover in seven states and the District of Columbia, were able to obtain driver's licenses at every agency where they applied. In many cases the identification documents they presented were meant to be clearly fake, but in every case, the agents were able to obtain a license.

What was of particular concern to investigators was that, even though the fake documents were spotted in many of the locations where the agents applied for licenses, the fake paperwork was never confiscated, law enforcement officials were never notified, and in some cases the agents merely left the motor vehicle office, fixed the documents, and re-applied - often on the same day - with success .

Security implications

The findings of the GAO investigators have serious implications for anti-terrorism security measures. In recent years, despite strong protest from civil liberties groups, the issue of a national identity card continues to be raised. However, the specter of individuals being stopped in the street and asked for "their papers," in the style of authoritarian countries raises hackles in the U.S. and other democratic countries. Driver licenses have come to be widely accepted as de facto identity cards, but the ease with which the GAO agents were able to obtain fake licenses will undoubtedly increase demands for national ID cards.

For some, national ID cards would go a long way toward solving the problem of security and terrorism. Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison offered to donate the software needed to create national ID cards soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. However, opponents say such cards would endanger civil liberties and give the federal government too much data about individual citizens and their whereabouts. The American Civil Liberties Union says calls the national ID cars a "misplaced, superficial quick fix."

ID Cards, says the ACLU, would not, for example, have prevented the September 11 attacks, since the attackers had legal documents. Criminals, the ACLU adds, can always get the documents they need. Naitonal ID cards would be expensive to implement and would merely be "a simplistic and naïve attempt to use gee-whiz technology to solve complex social and economic problems."

The main threat of a national ID card, says the ACLU, is that "it would require a governmental database of every person in the U.S. containing continually updated identifying information it would create a system of internal passports that would significantly diminish the freedom and privacy of law-abiding citizens. Once put in place, it is exceedingly unlikely that such a system would be restricted to its original purpose." After all, the ACLU adds, "The original Social Security Act contained strict prohibitions against use of Social Security cards for unrelated purposes, but those strictures have been routinely ignored and steadily abandoned over the past 50 years."

The government of Ireland recently abandoned a proposal for a national identity card. While recognizing the advantages of such a card, Ireland's Data Protection commissioner, Donal Linehan, observed that the cards would pose "very serious privacy implications for everybody."

Nevertheless, there's enormous pressure to introduce the cards. Last year, the British government unveiled a controversial proposal to introduce compulsory identity cards. Home Secretary David Blunkett told Parliament that he envisioned a universal "entitlement" card, for which everyone in Britain would register to gain the right to social services, benefits and employment. Many Britons see the card as a way to control a massive flow of illegal aliens that is costing the country about 2 billion pounds (about US $3.2). Civil liberty advocates see the 'entitlement' label as nothing more than a clever device to get the cards accepted.

Driver license as ID card

Over the years, Driver Licenses have become a sort of de facto ID card, accepted for many identification purposes such as check purchases, travel identification, banking. It comes as a shock to find the system of issuing them so lax.

The shocking thing, according to privacy expert Robert Douglas, is that DMV employees didn't do anything about the forged documents. "That means there is no risk to the person trying to obtain the false drivers license."

Douglas, whose American Privacy Consultants firm advises banks and other financial institutions on identity theft, will be testifying before the Senate hearing on national security, feels that this is a serious risk to security. It means that criminals or terrorists can keep probing at the system until they find a vulnerable area.

In California, which seemed to have the most vulnerabilities, agents managed to complete the process to receive three temporary state drivers licenses within two days, using the same fake information. No one at the DMV noticed that two individuals were simultaneously using the same fictitious name and same fraudulent supporting paperwork, according to the GAO report.