Security Improvements by State DMVs

States take steps to cut down on driver's license fraud

By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY

In Virginia, so many motor vehicles clerks have been caught selling fraudulent driver's licenses that the state is now removing manufacturing operations from its 74 regional offices.

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License production is being shifted to a remote, privately run facility near the North Carolina line that bars visitors, cameras and cellphones and operates with prison-like security. When DMV Commissioner D.B. Smit toured the Danville, Va., facility last month, he had to show ID to get in.

"We're making one of the most secure credentials in the nation," DMV spokeswoman Melanie Stokes said.

States across the USA are taking unprecedented steps to cut down on driver's license fraud, making forgeries and alterations harder than ever, according to a USA TODAY survey of all 50 states.

The efforts help stop teenagers from buying alcohol, out-of-state residents from getting state services and con artists running financial scams with phony identities, experts say.

"States have done a huge job of stopping everyday fraud, the casual identity thief," says Brian Zimmer, president of the Coalition for a Secure Driver's License.

The measures "help slow people who are fraudulently using driver's licenses in their crimes," says Malcolm Wiley of the U.S. Secret Service, which investigates financial crimes.

Critics such as Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap say the new security features "stop only the clumsiest counterfeiters. There's a level of sophistication in counterfeiting out there that will blow your mind." And other loopholes remain, Dunlap says.

Almost every state has produced or plans to produce new licenses with hard-to-replicate features such as holograms, multiple photographs, images that can be seen only under ultraviolet light or "microprinting" that can be read only with a magnifying glass.

Oklahoma licenses have microprinting of lyrics to the song Oklahoma with some lyrics deliberately omitted to make the license harder to counterfeit, said Karen Gentry, state director of driver's license examining.

Connecticut started issuing new licenses May 20. They feature an embedded graphic of a Charter Oak that is visible only under bright light and an image of a lighthouse that can be seen under ultraviolet light. Licenses that Virginia began issuing in March use polycarbonate cards, a flexible plastic on which words and images can be laser-engraved, making alterations almost impossible, said Karen Chappell, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

The new features are a technological leap from old-style licenses printed on layers of plastic laminate that can be peeled off so easily that college students could insert a new photograph, name or birth date, says Nebraska DMV Director Beverly Neth.

Next month, Nebraska will join Virginia and 16 other states that mail licenses from a single plant instead of making them at satellite offices and handing them out immediately. So-called central issuance helps stop DMV clerks from selling fake licenses or raw license materials.

Georgia began central issuance after local DMV offices were burglarized and license materials were stolen.

Many fraudulent licenses are sold to illegal immigrants to make them appear to be legal residents, says Georgia Department of Driver Services lawyer Jennifer Ammons.

But the steps leave a huge loophole: People can still take falsified identity documents into a DMV to get a validlicense, says Geoff Slagle, director of identification standards for the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.

"People are lulled into thinking if they beefed up security in a driver's license, they've slayed the dragon," Slagle says. "It's a false sense of security if the processes a person has to go through to obtain licenses are not addressed."

Many license applicants use birth certificates to prove their age and identity. But as more than 10,000 local agencies issue the certificates, it's almost impossible for DMVs to verify that a certificate is authentic and not forged, Slagle says.

Frank Abagnale, a security consultant to the FBI, says it's easy in many locales for a person to get a valid copy of another person's birth certificate.

"They have to do away with public-access laws," says Abagnale, a former con artist whose exploits in the 1960s inspired the 2002 movie Catch Me If You Can.

"That's where the really big debate is," says Dunlap, the Maine secretary of State.

Some states are installing equipment to help verify identity documents, according to Slagle.

"But we're not anywhere close to having an optimal solution for how you deal with this," he says.