Government Technology - March 2008 - (Page 49)

think are very favorable, such as the additional time for re-enrollment and also not requiring states to utilize verification systems until they’re actually operational.” “The good news is that the DHS seems to have listened to some of the recommendations of the states and what it may take to move Real ID David Quam, director of federal relations, National Governors Association from the improbable to at least the possible.” Information Technology Association of America’s (ITAA) subcommittee on identity management. Peter said the CDLIS should quell concerns about information being vulnerable because data is not stored in a single place. “CDLIS is a system AAMVA operates for the states, and all the states use it to check when somebody comes for a commercial driver’s license, whether you have a license in any other jurisdiction,” Peter explained. “The records aren’t centralized anywhere. It’s a pointer system; when the states initiate a query through AAMVA, [the association] sends messages to the individual states and gets responses back, then sends them back to the jurisdiction that initiated the query. That’s the same type of architecture that would exist for the state-to-state transactions to cover all drivers.” Despite the final rule, Real ID’s future seems unclear. The law challenges states’ rights while saddling states with an estimated $4 billion bill. And as anyone familiar with government spending can attest, there’s a good chance that cost estimate will go up. Half the states in the Union have passed or are considering laws requiring noncompliance with Real ID, setting the stage for an epic showdown between states and the federal government. If half the nation refuses to carry the only ID the federal government recognizes, what would happen to the airline industry? No one without a Real ID would be able to pass airport security. It’s just one of the intriguing questions Real ID presents. But there are some states, such as California and Alabama, which already issue drivers’ licenses that meet almost every technological requirement set forth in the Real ID Act, according to those states’ DMVs. For these states, funding deployment and managing tens of millions of DMV appointments will be the biggest challenge. While it’s true the DHS issued its final Real ID regulations, the reality is this is just the beginning. A Mixed Bag According to the final regulations, the date for compliance will be extended again, to 2014, for states that can prove they are actively attempting to meet the federal license standards. In addition, those born prior to Dec. 1, 1964, will not need to obtain a Real ID-compliant license until 2017, a move the DHS says reduces the estimated compliance cost for states from $11 billion to $3.9 billion. Meadows has already found a lot to be disappointed with, however. Despite the concessions, he said the DHS did not heed a number of other requests from states. Funding and privacy concerns appear to have gone ignored. “Even if we accept the [Homeland Security] Department’s new cost estimate of $3.9 billion, that’s still $3.9 billion,” said Meadows. “One of our requests of the department was that certain populations be exempted from the Real ID process, such as people already vetted by the federal government, namely people who already have passports or military IDs who are going to be able to use those forms of identification for all of the official purposes that a Real ID is going to be used for — boarding aircraft, entering federal buildings, etc. And they didn’t do that.” Meadows said the NCSL, as well as organizations such as the National Governors Association (NGA) and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), had hoped citizens already granted a passport or military identification could skip the enrollment process required by Real ID. The application process requires every citizen to show up in-person at the DMV — a crush of humanity that DMVs are ill prepared for, as well as an inconvenience for millions of Americans now accustomed to managing such affairs online. Questions also loom about states that have passed laws requiring nonparticipation in Real ID. The final regulations may go a long way toward bringing such states back into the fold, but they may not be enough, especially for states such as New Hampshire and Nevada whose residents pride themselves on independence and a tradition of states’ rights. “The good news is that the DHS seems to have listened to some of the recommendations of the states and what it may take to move Real ID from the improbable to at least the possible,” said David Quam, director of federal relations for the NGA. “But every state has to evaluate its situation to see if these rules match reality. Those states are going to have to look at the decisions they’ve made and determine whether to make a change. But that is ultimately going to be up to them. They’ve made some very strong statements and as of right now, I haven’t heard of anyone changing.” Technical Hurdles Technology continues to present challenges as well. As they exist today, state DMVs generally can’t effectively share information with other states. However, there is a promising solution that could make information exchange possible without needing a national database, which many fear would be a cyberterrorist’s dream come true. A couple of dozen pages into the massive final regulations document, the DHS outlines a strategy to use an existing system called the Commercial Drivers License Information System (CDLIS). The CDLIS, according to the DHS, “currently supports queries to every state DMV every time an individual applies for a driver’s license in any state or the District of Columbia. CDLIS already meets the data exchange requirements of Real ID for those drivers holding commercial drivers’ licenses. Moreover CDLIS is a secure, stategoverned system that stores the minimum amount of personal information possible to facilitate the routing of queries and responses between states. DHS is considering an effort to define system requirements for Real ID state-to-state data exchanges based upon the CDLIS model or platform.” Such a system is promising, according to Brendan Peter, the senior director of LexisNexis special services and chair of the 49 http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - March 2008

Government Technology - March 2008 Contents Point of View Big Picture The Last Mile On the Scene Four Questions for... Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers Let's [Not] Get Physical No Data Left Behind Conservation King Community Drug Test Reinventing the System Better Late Than Never Closing the Deal Spectrum Products Personal Computing signal:noise Digital Communities The Expanding Focus of Digital Communities The Digital Imperative Hot Fusion Redefining Municipal Wireless Made in the USA Bridge Detectives The 2008 Agenda

Government Technology - March 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.