New look for California driver's licenses and ID cards

[Quicksilver]

New look for California driver's licenses and ID cards - San Jose Mercury News

New look for California driver's licenses and ID cards
Your California driver's license is getting a new look -- and even a new feel.

In the first such change since 2001, the Department of Motor Vehicles on Wednesday unveiled new licenses and identification cards designed to make them more secure. The initial reaction: much more positive than not.

"I like it," said Adam Bishop, 28, of San Carlos, a project manager for a landscape construction company. "Seems a little clearer than the older versions (and) easier to read."

Added Jim Barnes, 57, of Los Gatos: "I'm all for anything that will make it more difficult for them to be misused."

Information on the new cards remains the same. But they come equipped with several features to protect them against fraud, tampering and counterfeiting. That led DMV Director George Valverde to call them "one of the most secure identification documents in the country."
Two years ago the DMV, working with the FBI and Highway Patrol, formed a license card security task force to identify which features needed to be added to the new card. A spokesman said the agency believes the new features will be extremely difficult to counterfeit for many years to come.

The most noticeable change is for persons younger than 21 -- a vertical instead of a horizontal layout. On all documents, the cardholder's date of birth and signature can be felt by touch; some images can be seen only with the use of ultraviolet lights; and a two-dimensional bar code on the back replicates and verifies information on the front.

"We definitely like the new driver's licenses," said Sgt. Rick Sung of the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office, adding that they are "more detail-oriented both front and back, which means it's more difficult to forge."

The DMV issues more than 8.25 million driver's license and identification cards to Californians a year, and there are 23.7 million licensed drivers in the state. The new cards will cost about $5 million more a year, costing $1.38 each to produce, compared with 75 cents for the older version.

There's no need to rush down to the DMV to get the new card. Existing identification or driver's license cardholders are not required to get new ones until their current cards need to be renewed.

A drawback, said Lt. Chris Monahan of the San Jose Police Department, is that licenses look just like identification cards, the only difference being the words "DRIVER LICENSE" instead of "IDENTIFICATION CARD" at the top right.

"I would like something that easily identifies the card as a license vs. an ID card," Monahan said. It'll be 2015 before all old cards have been replaced, causing Fremont Officer John Flynn to say, "Unfortunately, they always phase these in, and it is always a little confusing when you have different versions out there that are valid."

For parents, perhaps the most popular change is the vertical look to licenses issued to drivers younger than 21, which is the legal drinking age. "The vertical format," Flynn said, "will be great for bouncers at the bar to identify minors."

[Weasel]

Louisiana did that a few years ago too, luckily just after I turned 21 so I never got the vertical one. Fakes were still just as easy to make and you still had the vertical one after turning 21 till the it expired and was renewed... so that format was still working with fake dates with the young crowd because it made it look like they just turned 21. As long as you could get the hologram right at least.

[AzNMpower32]

Virginia came out with a more-secure, laser-encoded licence earlier this year or last year as well. They look awful, but whatever.

https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/webdoc/.../news/dlci.asp