DHS inks deal with Arizona on enhanced driver’s licenses

Arizona's governor signed an agreement yesterday with the Homeland Security Department to issue high-tech drivers' licenses that comply with a federal border control initiative and national standards that the government plans to release in six weeks.

Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano and DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff signed a memorandum of agreement that commits Arizona to follow federal requirements laid out in the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Congress established the plan in 2004 when it passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which requires citizens of the United States, Canada, Mexico and Bermuda to show a passport or other approved document that establishes identity and nationality (such as a high-tech driver's license containing biometric information) when entering and leaving the United States. The intent is to make it harder to enter this country using an easily forged document, such as the older driver's licenses that states have issued for decades.

The governors from New York, Vermont and Washington also have signed agreements.

By Jan. 31, 2008, DHS will require U.S. and Canadian citizens to present either a government-issued photo ID and proof of citizenship or a WHTI-compliant document, which includes a passport, or the so-called NEXUS card issued to travelers who frequently cross the U.S.-Canadian border, or a wallet-sized passport known as the PASS card, which is in development, or an enhanced driver's license. The licenses must be printed on a specific kind of cardstock and include a radio frequency identification chip, which contains a number that is connected to information in a state computer network identifying the individual. Border officials can quickly scan the high-tech license, which DHS says will speed crossings.

The memorandum Napolitano signed commits Arizona to issue the driver's licenses with RFID chips. The state legislature is expected to approve the program in 2008, Napolitano said.

"The security features are exactly what the 9/11 commission and other experts have talked about having … [and] make it very difficult for somebody to impersonate somebody else or to change their status," Chertoff said. "There's no such thing as a perfect card, and I sometimes tell people that if a foreign espionage agency wanted to find a way to tamper with a card or a passport, I can't guarantee they wouldn't do it. But this is the kind of thing that reduces the risk very, very, very substantially."

The memorandum also commits Arizona to develop a business plan that will include the requirements of national standards for driver's licenses. These standards, which are expected to be similar to those Arizona has agreed to follow under WHTI, were included in the 2005 REAL ID Act and are required to board airplanes and enter federal buildings. States have harshly criticized the requirements for the licenses, claiming the cost would be overly burdensome. DHS officials have reviewed 21,000 comments in setting the standards, which Chertoff says will be issued in six weeks.

Once the final rule for REAL ID is issued, Arizona's enhanced driver's license will comply with the requirements "as soon as practical," according to the memorandum. But Napolitano said compliance does not necessarily mean statewide adoption.

"We need the regulations. The funding issues are still winding their way through the Congress," Napolitano said. "Those will come. We already know the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative requirements, and we know what we need for our state employer sanctions law, so we moved ahead."

RFID was also considered for another DHS initiative, the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program, or US VISIT, as a way to identify foreign visitors as they enter and exit the United States. The technology was dropped when proof-of-concept tests failed to identify a large portion of visitors leaving the country.

The circumstances of that program were very different than WHTI, Chertoff said. "The value it has here is traffic flow," he said. As a person approaches an RFID reader, it has time to pick up the signal from the chip and pops up the individual's personal information on the border agent's computer screen. US VISIT did not have the same architecture, Chertoff said. "It just didn't make sense. But we are committed to making US VISIT Exit work effectively," he said. "As you know, the fingerprint reader with two prints has been successful at entry. We don't see any reason it can't be used at exit."