NEW DRIVER'S LICENSE FEATURES HIGH-SECURITY HOLOGRAM By SECRETARY OF STATE GEORGE H. RYAN

Driver's licenses and identification cards issued by the Secretary of State's office are primary sources of identification in Illinois. Because fraudulent identification allows many teenagers to drink and adds to the high cost of consumer fraud, making these documents tamper proof is one of my top priorities as Secretary of State.

Effective Jan. 1, new Illinois driver's licenses feature a double-sided hologram, making the widely used identification card one of the most secure in the nation. Only a handful of other states — including California, Massachusetts and Hawaii — issue a hologrammed driver's license, which cannot be reproduced by any known copying system.

New driver's licenses and ID cards will be phased in over the next five years as people regularly renew their licenses and IDs. Current licenses and ID cards are valid through their normal expiration dates, which are listed on the front of all documents.

At the suggestion of representatives from law enforcement agencies, retailers, privacy experts and organ donor groups, new licenses and IDs incorporate several other features designed to improve readability and security:

• Each plastic driver's license and ID casing is numbered and bar-coded, allowing police to track fake, altered or stolen IDs back to their source.
• The size of the print has been increased.
• Birth and expiration dates are highlighted in yellow to improve readability.

A new entry indicates whether the license holder has agreed to be listed in the state's central registry as a potential organ donor.

The changes are backed by both the Illinois Sheriffs Association and the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police.

Our hope is that this tamper-proof driver's license will force fake ID mills to close up shop. The technology required to produce the hologram — along with the other security measures — are virtually guaranteed to put production beyond the reach of the back-alley operations that have churned out fake IDs in the past.

The Illinois hologram was developed by the Secretary of State's office over the last nine months in conjunction with Polaroid, the state's driver's license contractor since 1980. It features a likeness of the Abraham Lincoln penny from one angle and the Great Seal of Illinois from the other.

The hologram is positioned over the most sensitive information — the photo, date of birth, class of license and Social Security number. Attempts to alter any of that information will destroy the hologram, making tampering easy to detect. Defacing or altering a driver's license or identification card is a criminal offense that can carry severe penalties, including fines and jail time.

Over the past three years, my office has undertaken a major enforcement effort, "Operation Brake Light," which has resulted in more than 70 arrests and broken up nearly a dozen fake ID rings, many of which targeted high school students.

I hope the new license security features will help Illinois combat underage drinking by making it far more difficult for minors to obtain counterfeit IDs.

People under age 21 spend hundreds of dollars to buy fake IDs for one reason and one reason only. A fake ID is their ticket to get into bars and buy liquor. Unfortunately, a teen with a fake ID is a tragedy in the making. Drivers under age 21 are almost twice as likely as all others to be killed in a drunk driving crash.

We believe these changes, as well as future enhancements, will further safeguard the integrity of the Illinois license and ID. While budgetary constraints limit the speed of implementation, future document enhancements may include digital photographs that could be stored by computer as well as magnetic stripes that store information.

Illinois issued its first photo driver's license in July 1977, replacing a paper license that had virtually no security features. In January 1986, the state began color-coding the driver's license of minors in an effort to deter underage drinking.

The most recent change occurred in April 1990, when the photo was moved from the left to the right side with implementation of the national commercial driver's license program.

January 1994 / Illinois Municipal Review / Page 11