Real ID Guide: What is it and how to get it yours
Actual IDs are becoming a national standard for state-issued identification. Don’t wait. Learn how to get yours.
- Privacy advocates have expressed concerns about potential data sharing and tracking across the state.
- Opponents argue that actual IDs create de facto national identification systems, increasing vulnerability to data breaches and government surveillance.
- The TSA claims that the actual ID sets minimum security standards rather than national IDs, and that the state manages individual databases.
Actual ID enforcement deadlines will take effect within a week following years of delays.
Adults will need a compliant driver’s license or ID to board a commercial domestic flight and enter certain other facilities on May 7th, but travelers will still be able to use accepted alternatives, such as passports.
The path to implementation in about 20 years due to the Real ID Act of 2005 is bumpy and is sometimes marked by resistance from the states tasked with issuing documents. Even after the law was passed, more than a dozen states opposed the actual ID, saying it comes with high administrative costs and poses a privacy threat. Advocacy groups raised similar concerns.
What should you know about this:
What are your actual privacy concerns about your ID?
Alexis Hancock, engineering director for the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the program “will drive a regime that strips everyone of privacy and further alienates undocumented people.”
“To enter a TSA checkpoint, you will soon need to identify your actual ID compliance, but there is no reason why it will not expand unless you can include additional “official purposes” in federal agencies in the future.”
As identification information is currently stored at the state level, Hancock added that the program’s unified standards can “redirect more easily” sensitive information on state lines, such as when state DMVs report that they have sold data to third parties.
The American Civil Liberties Union similarly states that when the law is fully implemented, it will facilitate personal data tracking. “By clearly changing driver licenses into the form of national identity documents, actual IDs will have a major destructive impact on privacy,” the organization’s website reads.
Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, told USA Today that “privacy concerns have been a long time about having a standardized identity system.”
“Because it’s not fully enabled yet, and because it’s been enacted so slowly, some of the things we were worried about have yet to happen,” he said in an interview. He also said that today’s “real battle” is about digital IDs and associated risks.
A Transportation Security Administration spokesman told USA Today that Real IDs are a “national set of minimum standards” rather than a national ID card, and that they have not created a federal driver’s license information database.
“The jurisdiction of each state continues to issue its own unique licenses, maintaining its own records and control that allow access to those records, and under any circumstances,” the spokesperson said in an email. “The purpose of an actual ID is to make state-issued identity documents accepted by federal agencies for official purposes more consistent and secure.”
Nathan Diller is a consumer travel journalist for Nashville-based USA Today. You can contact him at ndiller@usatoday.com.