PASS ID Act would not save states significant time and money and it would not meet recommendations by 9/11 Commmission, critics say

Opponents of the PASS ID Act (S. 1261) faulted the legislation Tuesday for provisions that would repeal requirements for electronic verification of birth certifications and loosen physical security standards for motor vehicle departments, thereby weakening secure driver's license laws to the point where they do not comply with a key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission.

The arguments came a day before Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was slated to provide a favorable assessment of the PASS ID Act before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Wednesday.

Janice Kephart, director of National Security Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, criticized the PASS ID Act for ignoring the 9/11 Commission's recommendation to set federal standards for the issuance of secure drivers licenses and the verification of birth records thus repealing a key provision of the REAL ID Act (Public Law 109-13).

The 9/11 Commission made the recommendation in 2004, the same year that the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) issued a security framework that called for identity verification and document authentication on information such as an applicant's date of birth, passport information, and legal status when applying for a driver's license, Kephart said.

The REAL ID Act builds on those guides to set a deadline for states to verify the identity of applications seeking drivers' licenses, noted Kephart, formerly a staffer to the 9/11 Commission.

Under REAL ID, states are required to digitize their birth records and to provide network connectivity to their vital records so that any other state may check them. PASS ID, by contrast, would change the law so that states need only validate the identity of applicants by checking their paper documents, Kephart explained at a forum sponsored by The Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC.

REAL ID requires a secure driver's license to board a commercial aircraft, to enter a federal building, or to carry out some other official purpose, while PASS ID would eliminate that requirement, Kephart said. REAL ID requires states to submit security plans to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to meet security and privacy standards, but PASS ID would eliminate that requirement as well.

In addition, REAL ID requires the creation of a network of state databases to enable states to verify that applicants do not hold multiple licenses in multiple states under the principle of "one driver, one license," but PASS ID would repeal directives to set up that network, Kephart added.

But Kephart's main complaint was over the PASS ID's proposed elimination of birth record digitization and verification, which would negate any possibility of PASS ID adhering to the 9/11 Commission recommendation for secure drivers' licenses, she said.

Indeed, states are on track for digitizing their birth records, Kephart noted. Three years ago, only three states had digitized their birth records back to 1935, as required by the REAL ID Act. But as of today, 15 states and New York City have digitized their records, she added. Five more will have done so by the end of 2009.

All states would be compliant with the birth record digitization requirement by the last REAL ID deadline of May 2011, according to projections by the National Association for Public Health Statistics and Information Systems (NAPHSIS), the nonprofit overseeing the project.

The costs of the digitization and verification projects are also very affordable, Kephart asserted. The total cost of connecting all states and territories through a shared network is $3.8 million, which already has been provided. The cost of digitizing and cleaning up e-records in all states is less than $102.5 million (perhaps as low as $75 million), by NAPHSIS estimates based upon a survey of states three years ago.

Kephart did reserve praise for a provision of PASS ID that would allow the secretary of Homeland Security to certify enhanced drivers' licenses as compliant with national secure identification standards. Many border states are adopting these enhanced drivers' licenses to provide their residents with an identification that meets the requirements of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which requires a tamperproof identification for US citizens traveling over the border to Canada or Mexico.

The certification of enhanced drivers licenses as secure identification would make a worthy amendment to the REAL ID Act, Kephart acknowledged.