27,000 licenses on invalid Social Security numbers

A state audit released today has found that North Carolina has issued roughly 27,000 drivers licenses to motorists based on invalid Social Security numbers.

State Auditor Les Merritt said the problem lies with licenses issued under an older system that the state Division of Motor Vehicles now uses. The new system, which the division began using in August, checks Social Security numbers automatically before issuing licenses. The old system did not.

“The hole we discovered was that DMV did not review previously issued licenses," Merritt said in a news release. “That hole presents a potential threat to homeland security and exacerbates the problem of identity theft.”

Auditors don’t know if the invalid Social Security numbers were intentionally used to obtain licenses, said Chris Mears, a spokesman for the auditor’s office.

“We’re assuming that some of those simply will be keypunch errors [by DMV clerks], but we thought that 27,000 was a big number,” Mears said.

Roughly half the invalid Social Security numbers appear to have never been assigned, while the rest belonged to people who had died, the audit said.

Since taking office in 2005, Merritt has been checking the use of invalid Social Security numbers among state employees and those obtaining driver’s licenses.

Marge Howell, a DMV spokeswoman, said there could be several reasons for the invalid Social Security numbers, such as a newly married people changing their names.

“We don’t know what’s causing all the discrepancies, but we are in the process of going through our data base and making those comparisons,” she said.