Drivers’ licenses have become widely accepted as an identity document because they generally contain identifying information such as the licensee’s name, photograph, physical description, and signature and may include features that make them more difficult to counterfeit or alter. As of 2010, about 210 million drivers were licensed in the United States.Due to the crucial role of the driver’s license as an identity document, individuals may try to fraudulently obtain them for a wide range of purposes. For example, some may try to get a license in someone else’s name to commit financial fraud, such as stealing government benefits, opening bank or credit card accounts, and writing counterfeit checks. Criminals may also obtain multiple licenses under different identities so they can commit criminal acts and, if apprehended, avoid having charges associated with their true identity. Illegal aliens may use a counterfeit license to live in the United States. The prevalence of driver’s license fraud in the United States is difficult to fully determine or quantify. The Federal Bureau of Investigation collects data from all states on a number of different categories of crimes through its Uniform Crime Reporting program, but this program does not have a category specifically for driver’s license fraud. Estimates are, however, available from a few sources. For example, in 2010 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that complaints involving the issuance or forging of drivers’ licenses accounted for 0.9 percent of the approximately 251,000 identity theft complaints it received overall (about 2,300 complaints). Some evidence suggests, though, that many identity theft cases go unreported and thus the total number of identity theft cases may be substantially higher than the FTC figure. In addition, the Center for Identity Management and Information Protection analyzed 517 identity theft cases investigated by the U.S. Secret Service between 2000 and 2006, and found that counterfeit drivers’ licenses were used in 35 percent of these cases. Verifying license applicants’ identity and preventing fraud has traditionally been a state responsibility, but after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there was an increased federal interest in driver’s license issuance and security, as evidenced by the passage of the REAL ID Act of 2005. States are not mandated to comply with the Act; however, the Act establishes specific procedures states must follow when issuing drivers’ licenses in order for those licenses to be accepted by federal agencies for “official purposes,” including, but not limited to, boarding commercial aircraft, entering federal buildings, and entering nuclear power plants. As of July 2012, 17 states had enacted laws expressly opposing implementation or prohibiting the relevant state agencies from complying with the REAL ID Act. Under the REAL ID Act, DHS has primary responsibility for establishing how and when states can certify their compliance and determining whether states are compliant. DHS issued regulations in 2008 that provided details on how it would determine whether states were REAL ID-compliant. Although the Act set a May 11, 2008, deadline for compliance, DHS’ regulations allowed states to request an extension of the full compliance deadline to May 11, 2011, and the agency later pushed the date back to January 15, 2013. If states are interested in complying with the Act, they must submit documentation no later than 90 days before this deadline (around October 15, 2012). Initially, after the January deadline, individuals with licenses from states determined to be compliant may continue to use their licenses for official purposes, regardless of when these licenses were issued, according to DHS. However, by December 1, 2014, certain individuals—those born after December 1, 1964—must be issued new, REAL ID-compliant licenses by states that have been determined to be compliant in order to use their licenses for official purposes. By December 1, 2017, all license holders must be issued new, REAL ID-compliant licenses in order to use them for official purposes. The REAL ID Act sets minimum standards for several aspects of the license and identification card issuance process. In the area of identity verification, the Act establishes the following requirements, among others, for states seeking compliance: Documentation: States must require license applicants to provide documentation of their name, date of birth, SSN, address of principal residence, and lawful status in the United States; Verification: Requires states to verify with the issuing agency the issuance, validity, and completeness of the documents presented as proof of name, date of birth, SSN (or verify the applicant’s ineligibility for an SSN), address, and lawful status, with specific requirements to confirm SSNs with SSA and verify lawful status of non-citizens through an electronic DHS system; Image capture: Requires states to capture and store digital images of all documents presented by license applicants to establish identity, such as passports and birth certificates, and capture the facial images of all applicants; Renewals: Requires states to establish an effective procedure for confirming or verifying the information provided by individuals seeking to renew their licenses; One driver, one license: Requires states to refuse to issue a license to an applicant who already holds a license from another state, without confirming that this other license has been or is in the process of being terminated; and Staff training: States must establish training programs on recognizing fraudulent documents for appropriate employees involved in issuing licenses. State driver licensing agencies use a combination of different techniques to verify the identity of license applicants and prevent fraud. These various procedures are used together to detect license fraud and no single technique is sufficient, according to officials at several licensing agencies. All states have in place some procedures to detect counterfeit documents, which may include electronic systems to verify data contained on documents—such as the Social Security card—or visual inspection of documents. Many states also use other techniques to detect fraud, including facial recognition, cross-state checks, or internal controls for licensing transactions. (See table 1.) All states plus the District of Columbia are now using Social Security Online Verification (SSOLV) to verify license applicants’ SSNs and other personal data, consistent with the REAL ID Act’s requirement to confirm SSNs with SSA. The number of states verifying SSNs with SSA has increased substantially since 2003, when we reported that 25 states were Even states with laws opposing implementation of the REAL doing so.ID Act are checking SSNs through SSOLV. Use of SSOLV allows states to verify that the SSN provided by a license applicant is valid. In other words, SSOLV allows states to check whether (1) someone has been issued this SSN, (2) the SSN matches the name and date of birth provided by the applicant, and (3) the SSN is associated with a deceased individual. Officials in most of the states we interviewed said they never or rarely issue a permanent driver’s license before obtaining a verification of the applicant’s personal data. In fiscal year 2011, the SSOLV verification rate—that is, the percentage of SSOLV verification requests that confirmed the validity of the personal data submitted—was 93 percent on average nationwide, and almost all the states had rates above 85 percent. The national average is an increase from the 89 percent average rate in fiscal year 2008, the earliest year for which data were available. Officials in almost all of the states we interviewed said they had no concerns about the percentage of SSOLV queries that failed to verify. The most common reason for non-verifications nationwide in 2011 was that the name presented by the applicant did not match the name associated with the SSN on file with SSA. Officials in most of the states we interviewed cited name changes as the most common reason for this. A license applicant may have changed their name after marriage, but not reported this change to SSA. In such cases, states may ask applicants to resolve the issue with SSA and then return to the licensing agency so the SSOLV query may be run again. Most states are also using Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE), another REAL ID Act requirement, but officials in some of the states we interviewed reported challenges with the system. SAVE, operated by DHS, verifies the information in documents that non-citizen applicants provide to prove they have lawful status in the United States. As of 2012, licensing agencies in 42 states plus the District of Columbia had agreements with DHS to use it.agreements do not use the system consistently for each non-citizen applicant. For example, officials in one state we interviewed said they used SAVE only when the documents submitted by a non-citizen raised questions, such as if they appeared tampered with or indicated a non- citizen no longer has lawful status in the country. Officials in the five However, a few states with such states we interviewed that were not using SAVE most often cited technological challenges, such as difficulties providing front-counter staff in local issuance branches with routine access to the system. Officials in all but one of these states said they plan to start using the system if these issues are resolved. Officials in half of the states we interviewed that were using SAVE said they were concerned about the verification rate they obtained. When states submit data from non-citizens’ lawful status documents, the system searches a variety of DHS databases in an effort to verify these data. If data are not verified on the first attempt, the state may initiate a second and then a third attempt, which entail manual checks by DHS staff and additional costs for the state. Officials in one state, for example, told us when SAVE does not verify lawful status on the first attempt, moving on to additional attempts requires additional efforts by staff. Officials in a few states said they believe data entry errors and delays in updating the data in DHS databases are common reasons that data are not verified; DHS officials also listed these as possible factors. Among all licensing agencies using SAVE, the verification rate for initial SAVE queries during fiscal year 2011 varied from 45 percent to 91 percent, according to DHS data (see fig. 1).