Driver's license fraud prompts states to strengthen weak spots

In one state after another, long-neglected motor vehicle departments are being retrofitted - incrementally and inconsistently - for front-line responsibility in protecting the homeland in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Spurred by national alarm at the ease with which more than half of the Sept. 11 hijackers had obtained fraudulent driver's licenses, state governments from Florida to California are moving to crack down on driver's license fraud and demand more extensive documentation of identity before issuing licenses. But each state is pursuing its own path, with varying success.

New Jersey this week became the latest state to unveil planned reforms, including heightened security at motor vehicle offices, better-trained employees and the design of more tamper-resistant driver's licenses. But the agency's existing security problems illustrated the enormous challenge suddenly facing agencies that many states have overlooked and underfunded for decades.

"New Jersey's Department of Motor Vehicles has been ignored for approximately 15 years," said state Transportation Commissioner Jamie Fox, who took office seven months ago.

"We just got our first budget increase in 12 years. The budget is 25 percent less than it was 12 years ago. The computer system is 15 years old. Twelve years ago, we had 15 fraud investigators; now we have two."

Verifying IDs

Driver's license security has become a matter of national urgency amid a rise in identity theft and the closely related battle against terrorism. Airlines have relied heavily on driver's licenses since Sept. 11 to verify passengers' identities.

Eight of the Sept. 11 hijackers obtained driver's licenses in Virginia through a now-closed loophole. Two hijackers were reported to have had New Jersey licenses. Officials say this shows lax security at even one state's motor vehicle department puts the entire system at risk.

"September 11th raised to public attention just what the driver's license has become: America's ID of choice," said Jason King of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. "Once you have one, you can rent an apartment, rent a car, open a bank account, cash a check, board an airplane."

Association President Linda Lewis said states are developing widely different licenses, some embedded with biomedical information about the driver, others with only descriptive data.

The association is seeking a set of minimum, uniform standards for all licenses, but its effort to link the driver's license databases of all the states - a link already available for commercial driver's licenses - has been blocked by privacy advocates.

New Jersey dramatizes the problems in having wide variation among state licenses. It is one of the last states without a digitized photograph on its license; drivers, in fact, can opt for no photograph at all. Fox said the state is developing guidelines for a more secure license and will advertise the contract next month. But the contract likely won't be issued until February 2003, and new licenses won't be in use until well after that.

The license is one of the easiest to duplicate fraudulently, Fox acknowledged - college students regularly hold parties where New Jersey licenses are counterfeited to facilitate underage drinking, state officials said.

At Wednesday's announcement, officials made clear the problem goes far beyond merely the license's format. Security at motor vehicle offices around New Jersey is spotty to minimal, allowing relatively easy access to driver's license production equipment, title certificates and other documents that are "the key components in crimes such as identity theft and insurance fraud," according to a report the officials released.

"Current security protections and measures to thwart this nearly billion-dollar criminal business are haphazard, inconsistent and completely inadequate for the magnitude of the risk," the report concluded.

In addition, New Jersey privatized its motor vehicle services several years ago, and, according to a Department of Transportation spokesman, "until the new director came in, we didn't even know the names of the people working in the agencies." Low pay and high turnover, he said, make it "ripe for corruption." In recent weeks, the state attorney general's office indicted 40 people, including motor vehicle office employees, in an alleged scheme to produce fraudulent driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. According to the indictments, fake licenses were sold for as much as $2,000. The investigation is continuing and has identified some connections between New Jersey license fraud and Sept. 11 hijackers.