New Security Standards Urged For Driver's License

The association representing state motor vehicle agencies on Monday will unveil standards it believes are needed to prove the identities of holders of driver's licenses, including proposals for state-maintained databases that will be accessible to private companies nationwide.

The ID Security Task Force of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators will recommend security features it believes driver's licenses need if they are to be used as identification documents, AAMVA officials say.

"We don't look at it as creating a national ID, but if people do continue using licenses as identification documents, we would like to make sure from a safety perspective that they are good credible documents," says Jay Maxwell, president and chief operating officer of AAMVAnet, the subsidiary that runs AAMVA's information systems and sets technical standards.

The proposed standards, which would require legislative approval, would need to be phased in over a period of years and would not specify which identifying technologies would be incorporated into licenses, according to the group. However, under consideration are machine-readable features such as magnetic stripes or bar codes and biometric identifiers such as fingerprints, face-recognition technology, or iris-scanning systems, officials say. Under the proposals, the databases associated with the new licenses would let nongovernment entities such as airlines, retailers, and banks access information about individuals to verify their identities.