Real IDIllinois scrambles to meet Real ID deadline

State officials in Illinois are working to make driver’s licenses and identification cards comply with the Real ID Act of 2005 before commercial air travel restrictions are implemented in 2016. Illinois identification cards do not meet minimum standards mandated by Congress in 2005 as part of an effort to “improve the reliability and accuracy of state-issued identification documents, which should inhibit terrorists’ ability to evade detection by using fraudulent identification.” Since its inception, critics have raised concerns about costs of implementation, privacy issues, and whether the act would actually reduce threats.

As of 30 January 2015, twenty-one states and four territories have been granted extensions to meet Real ID standards; twenty-two states and Washington, D.C. have implemented the act. Seven states — Arizona, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and New York — have no plans to implement Real ID. New York and Minnesota issue driver’s licenses with enhanced security measures that meet Real ID requirements.

The Real ID Act requires states to verify personal information of applicants including birth certificates. The Chicago Tribune notes that the information is then electronically scanned and stored in a federal database, and data can be shared among states and the federal government. “It’s a large database that allows us to verify birth certificates and death certificates, things of that nature,” said Henry Haupt, spokesman for Secretary of State Jesse White. “It’s quite costly. We estimate, in order to utilize it and have all the birth certificates verified for Illinois drivers, it would cost about $3.75 million each year.”

Last December DHS required all states that have received an extension to adopt and implement Real ID to do so by 1 October 2020. Residents of states that do not have extensions must show additional identification such as a passport before boarding a commercial airplane beginning in 2016. Illinois has received two extensions to comply with the Real ID Act, the second of which expires in October. Haupt believes Illinois will receive another extension, adding that the state will begin issuing Real ID driver’s licenses in 2016. “Illinois has worked in good faith toward making changes,” Haupt said. “One of the things we are working on in the Illinois General Assembly is a bill implementing and funding Real ID.”

State Senator Ire Martinez (D-Chicago) said the looming October deadline has forced legislators to speed up implementation. “I do believe we are at the tipping point where Illinois lawmakers need to understand what the final stages of Real ID entail,” Martinez said. In 2007, Martinez sponsored a nonbinding resolution opposing the act, and in 2011 blocked a bill to implement it. “I viewed Real ID as yet another unfunded federal mandate on state governments already facing tough budgets for important priorities,” Martinez said. “The proposition of a creation of a ‘one size fits all’ ID card necessary to travel was of great concern.” Martinez still disapproves of Illinois adopting the Real ID Act, pointing out that more than four million Illinoisans already have passports.

Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, is worried that a government database of U.S. citizens and some of their personal information would be a gold mine for identity thieves. “One of the troubling things is that the system to protect our data will no longer be dependent about what happens here in Illinois,” Yohnka said. “What happens in Mississippi or Maine or Montana will be a conduit to get to our data. If hackers can get into those systems, they can get to the national system.”

Brian Zimmer, president of the Coalition for a Secure Driver’s License, who helped draft the law’s provisions on driver’s licenses as a congressional committee staffer, counters that Real ID helps prevent fraud as people move between states. “Every state maintains its own data set,” he said. “In the future, this is a system by which states can query each other when someone shows up and says they just moved. They can check records with that person’s home state to confirm it is the same person.”