Making ID cards reliable

WASHINGTON -- Should banks cash checks from people who cannot prove who they are? Should parents hire babysitters they know nothing about? Should airlines let passengers on board without validating their identities?

For most Americans, these questions answer themselves. Our citizens depend on different forms of government-issued identification, such as driver's licenses, every day.

But are these documents necessarily reliable? Consider these facts:

* All but one of the 9/11 hijackers carried government IDs that helped them board planes and remain in the country illegally.

* Last year, our immigration and customs agents charged hundreds of illegal workers with crimes relating to state and federal document fraud.

* In 2005 alone, identity theft cost American households $64 billion, and 28 percent of these incidents likely required a driver's license to perpetrate.

These examples highlight America's need for more secure forms of identification. That is a core 9/11 Commission recommendation, a key congressional mandate and something that the American people overwhelmingly support.

In 2005, Congress passed the REAL ID Act precisely for this purpose, and on Friday our department unveiled uniform standards to help the states advance this vital imperative.

Under these new standards, individuals seeking driver's licenses must provide their state Department of Motor Vehicles office with documents proving who they are and that they're here legally. States must verify that the documents presented are legitimate. DMV offices will be required to protect their own operations from identity theft and other nefarious activities. States must issue new, REAL ID licenses that will be tougher to counterfeit or tamper with. They must work together to prevent individuals from receiving driver's licenses from multiple states.

Many states are already taking steps to secure identification, and we will grant extensions for REAL ID implementation to those that need them and are making genuine progress.

We are making $360 million available to help defray the costs of implementation -- $80 million in dedicated REAL ID grants and $280 million in general homeland security funding. We've cut these costs by 73 percent by giving states greater flexibility in issuing licenses to Americans who will be 50 years of age and older as of Dec. 1, 2014. We will extend their enrollment deadline to Dec. 1, 2017.

As a result, the average cost increase for issuing a REAL ID license will be aboonlyut $8 per person. For states issuing five-year licenses, that is an increase of just $1.60 per year.

For most people, that's clearly a price worth paying to prevent others from stealing their identity and committing crimes with fraudulent identification.

But that's not the case for a small but vocal minority who oppose REAL ID.

Some of their objections are based on misinformation. A good example is the spurious claim that we're ushering in a national identity card. What we are actually doing is setting standards that will let the states keep issuing their own ID cards.

Other critics seem to think that it is a privacy violation simply to create secure identification. But remember what I said about checks, babysitters and planes. Almost no one -- including privacy advocates -- denies that sometimes we need to know who we're dealing with. We need a document that reveals their identity. So why would anyone oppose efforts to secure identity documents from fraud and falsification?

Put another way, what good is having identification if it cannot be relied upon? Why check someone's ID if we can't tell if it's genuine?

Your privacy truly is at stake in the REAL ID debate. But in my view, it's the opponents of secure identification who pose the greatest risk. Without REAL ID, you are far more likely to endure one of the worst privacy violations -- having your identity stolen.

By issuing this rule, we've moved decisively to secure our nation and its people in the coming years. I truly believe that one day our children will look back at this day and wonder how we could have lived without these common-sense protections.

Michael Chertoff is secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (www.dhs.gov).