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Real ID: Coming to a State Near You?

By: Doug Gale

4/11/2008


Non-official Uses: The Real ID Act does not give the DHS authority to restrict who may or may not use Real ID cards. In other words, the local convenience store will be using the Real ID card to control the sale of cigarettes to minors. Remember that Social Security numbers were never meant to be an identifier, but for decades that's what they were.

Third Party Skimming: Real ID cards will include unencrypted personal information in machine-readable format. The decision to not encrypt was driven by state and local law enforcement groups concerned about key management and accessing the information on the card quickly. Non-official users may well find it irresistible to collect the information on a Real ID card. There have been reports that some businesses are already collecting personal data from driver's licenses using commonly available readers without patrons' consent. While some States, such as California, Nebraska, New Hampshire, and Texas have passed laws that prohibit the collection of information on a driver's license or identification card, most have not.

Adequacy: Although they draw different conclusions, both those supporting and those opposing the Real ID Act are concerned about the adequacy of the regulations. Critics point out that ID documents don't reveal anything about evil intent and that determined terrorists will be able to obtain forged documents. That being the case, they argue that Real ID isn't worth the attendant loss of civil liberties.

Philosophical Concern
The philosophical objection to the Real ID Act is that it puts the country on a slippery slope to creating a national identity card and a "surveillance society." Thus we find some politically conservative "red" states such as South Carolina aligning with liberal "blue" states such as Maine in opposition to Real ID. This philosophical concern has led to strange bedfellows, including the John Birch Society and the American Civil Liberties Union.

What Does This Mean for Higher Education?
While analysis of the impact of Real ID lies with a campus' legal staff, it is inevitable that the IT unit will become involved because of the work we do with information security. We need to be prepared to help:

Determine the impact of Real ID on faculty, staff, and students. For example, an opinion by Michigan's attorney led the state to stop issuing new licenses to undocumented and temporary residents. That group included people on student visas and would have seriously impacted foreign graduate students who lived off campus. A change in state law was required.

Analyze the data security requirements needed to protect information stored on state databases.