House lawmakers advocate biometrics-based licenses

Reacting to the security lapses revealed by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the growing problem of identity theft, Republican Tom Davis and Democrat James Moran, both House members from Virginia, on Wednesday introduced a measure that would enable states to store biometric information on drivers' licenses.

The measure seeks to standardize security features for all state-issued licenses. Unique biometric features of applicants would be stored in computer chips contained on the licenses. The notion behind the bill is to stop people from fraudulently using state-issued identification.

"This is something that we have had the technology to do for some time, but we think what happened on September 11 makes a compelling case to do now," Moran said at a press briefing. Several terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington had obtained fake driver's licenses from states including Virginia.

The measure endorses an idea championed by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators as a way to close security gaps in the process of granting licenses, which in essence have become an ID system.

The Moran-Davis bill would allow state departments of motor vehicles to link their databases, but the agencies could only collect biometrics information with the express consent of consumers. Moran said the measure would not create a "national ID" but would merely give states that need to verify the authenticity of license applications access to other states' databases.

"States will be able to check with other states and find out if [a] person should be issued a driver's license" Moran said, but the bill would place very "strict controls to protect people's privacy. We have looked at all of these potential problems with this, and I really think we have created the legislation in a way to address any concerns that people might have."

Experts from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) argued that the measure would achieve a careful balance between security and privacy concerns. Non-governmental entities could not collect the biometric information, PPI Vice President Robert Atkinson said, but consumers eventually could choose to use the system to authenticate their identities in online transactions.

Under the bill, the Transportation Security Administration, in concert with states and other federal agencies such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology, would set guidelines for implementing the system, including the creation of standards for connecting databases and encoding chips. The federal government also could provide $300 million in grants.

Privacy advocates charge that the measure could compromise privacy. In a February report, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) said that the proposal could lead to profiling and that the use of biometrics is not necessarily fraud proof.

Moran countered on Wednesday that the use of biometrics would be virtually impossible to tamper with, and even if the information were compromised, he said, individuals could prove their identities in other ways, using birth certificates or medical records.