Federal ID Act May Be Flawed

Federal ID Act May Be Flawed:

"A federal law designed to make it harder to assume someone else's identity may instead have the opposite effect, critics of the measure say.

The Real ID Act, attached to a crucial bill for military spending and tsunami relief that was signed by President Bush on May 11, sets new rules for issuing driver's licenses and requires states to share electronic access to their records.
..........................

'It's a gigantic treasure trove for those who are bent on obtaining data for the purpose of creating fake identities,' said Beth Givens of the nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Armed with a stranger's name, Social Security number and date of birth, it's not hard for fraudsters to take out bogus loans that can wreck a victim's credit record.

The new licenses themselves must contain some data — as yet unspecified — that can be scanned electronically by a device like a credit card reader. Virtually all states make machine-readable cards now, but they use differing technologies.

Critics predict the standardization will prompt many more merchants to scan customer licenses and then pass on the information to such data brokers as ChoicePoint Inc. and LexisNexis. The databases of both ChoicePoint and LexisNexis have been exploited by identity thieves.

'There's no data-protection law, so it can be sold to companies like ChoicePoint,' said Bruce Schneier, the author of several books on security technology. 'It would be silly not to, since it's a revenue stream.'"