The Department of Homeland Security's outside privacy advisors explicitly refused to bless proposed federal rules to standardize states' driver's licenses Monday, saying the Department's proposed rules for standardized driver's licenses -- known as Real IDs -- do not adequately address concerns about privacy, price, information security, redress, "mission creep", and national security protections.
"Given that these issues have not received adequate consideration, the Committee feels it is important that the following comments do not constitute an endorsement of REAL ID or the regulations as workable or appropriate," the committee wrote in the introduction to their comments (.pdf) for the rulemaking record. "The issues pose serious risks to an individual’s privacy and, without amelioration, could undermine the stated goals of the REAL ID Act."
The 18-member Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee began looking at the proposed rules at the request of Hugo Teufel IIl, DHS's chief privacy officer. According to Teufel's instructions, the group was asked to provide very specific comment on how to implement the rules, which civil liberties groups and libertarian-leaning states want repealed, not reformed.
While the committee's 12 final recommendations are mostly predictable (such as restricting what the ID can be used for and making sure that the machine-readable portion of any Real ID should not be easily readable by unauthorized persons), the importance of Homeland Security's own advisory board explicitly saying it won't endorse Real ID as workable or appropriate shouldn't be underestimated.
Comments are due on the proposed rules by 5 p.m. EST Tuesday.
