Fergie's Tech Blog

DHS to Outsource REAL ID

Via UnRealID.com.

The Department of Homeland Security plans to outsource REAL ID implementation to third-party data aggregators, according to official DHS documents. The Department of Homeland Security has finished their proposed regulations for implementing the Real ID Act and has sent them to the Office of Management and Budget for approval. The publication of DHS's REAL ID regulations will follow shortly.

The compliance guidelines are almost one year overdue. According to a still-secret several hundred-page dossier sent last week by DHS to the Office of Management and Budget, DHS considered three ways to implement the REAL ID Act:

• Plan A: Order the individual states to find a way of communicating data to one another. This idea was given short shrift by DHS, who dismissed it out of hand.
• Plan B: Have DHS build a centralized database for the states to query before issuing REAL ID-compliant drivers licenses. This idea was also rejected.
• Plan C: Have a private data aggregator act as the central database. This is the plan advocated by DHS. The plan calls for the outsourcing of all drivers license and ID card checks to a private corporation, who would then charge the states for each check performed. DHS head Michael Chertoff personally ordered this option to be chosen, according to a senior administration source.

What does this all mean? Quite simply, this is the outsourcing of our Constitutional rights. It means that all privacy protections on our drivers licence data will be removed once the DMV sends your data to the private corporation.

posted by Fergie @ 1/14/2007 10:22:00 AM