Ten Top Real ID Complaints
I've taken a couple opportunities to express my concerns with the Real ID Law.
Wilson Dizard III shared this list in a recent edition of Government Computer News that I felt was worth sharing with you.
The Real ID law has met with a fusillade of criticism from state and federal lawmakers, privacy advocates, state executive branch officials and commentators. Opponents have cited dozens of potential technical problems, including: 
10. Only one of the five national systems that state motor vehicle departments will need to implement the Real ID law is currently ready, according to the National Governors Association. DHS itself concedes that some federal “reference databases” aren’t yet complete.
9. Real ID calls for states to use a single array of security features for driver’s license cards, which could force states to abandon existing card issuance systems.
8. The federal government lacks a uniform naming convention that would facilitate states’ electronic verification between files.
7. The door remains open for creation of a de facto national identity database.
6. The draft Real ID rule doesn’t include a redress process, which likely will become a technical as well as a policy issue, because thousands of people now have driver’s licenses with faulty data.
5. The draft doesn’t require that data on the license’s machine-readable zone (MRZ) be encrypted. DHS has said that distributing encryption keys, or a single, common key to the 16,000 state and local law enforcement agencies that will need access to the MRZ data would pose an unacceptable challenge. The department said it would favor MRZ encryption if the practical problems could be solved and raised the possibility that the MRZ shouldn’t include the bearer’s address.
4. Some critics charge that Real ID magnifies privacy risks, partly by shirking the requirement that federally sponsored systems meet the standards of the Federal Information Security Management Act. The draft rule states that it doesn’t create a national database because it leaves the interstate data exchange decisions to the DMVs. That statement prompted Jim Harper, director of information policy studies for the Cato Institute, to posit that DHS was saying, “My car didn’t hit you—the bumper did.”
3. DHS has failed to require that the MRZ omit the race identifier field.
2. Real ID fails to take advantage of identity verification processes the federal government already carries out when it issues passports, military IDs, Transportation Worker Identification Cards and some federal employee credentials. The National Conference of State Legislatures has asked why, if individuals holding such documents can already board an airliner, they should be checked again to get a driver’s license.
1. Technical challenges, such as the apparently inadvertent omission of several categories of legal residents eligible for the credentials and the high cost to states of complying with the law, have spurred a vigorous rejection campaign in state capitals. Idaho and Maine already have enacted laws rejecting the Real ID requirements, and similar legislation is pending in dozens of additional states.
I'd like to hear your comments, pro or con, on this law.
Comments