May 8, 2007
REAL ID: not a big deal
Both BoingBoing and /. have been going completely nuts over the proposed REAL ID regulation. In essence, the Department of Homeland Security is proposing that the states standardize their identification issuing practices and after May 1, 2008, federal agencies would stop accepting non-compliant ID.
For those who can't be bothered to read the regulation, the requirements would be:
"full legal name, date of birth, gender, a unique driver's license or identification card number (not the SSN), a full facial digital photograph, address of principal
residence (with certain exceptions), issue and expiration dates, signature, physical security features and a common machine-readable technology (MRT)".
My current drivers license has all of those things. The regulation does not propose the creation of a national identification database. It would require state databases to be compatible, but they mostly are already.
I really don't understand what the big deal is.
