New Driver’s Licenses Seek to Foil Crime

A new California driver’s license, described as “super secure” because of technological improvements to foil thieves and counterfeiters, will be mailed beginning this week to motorists who have applied for a new or renewed license, officials said Monday.

The new license will replace a design introduced in 1999 that included a primary photo and a smaller, secondary one of the driver, a security magnetic strip on the black and other anti-theft features.

Department of Motor Vehicles spokesman Steve Haskins in Sacramento said the new license will retain the two photos and most of the security features in the 1999 card.

In addition, improvements include:

* An ink that changes color when viewed from different angles. DMV officials say copy machines and other low-grade counterfeiting technologies cannot reproduce it.

* A process that allows for full-color printing of images that emerge only under ultraviolet light. An image of the California state flag is printed on the new licenses with this method.

* A “microprinting” process, similar to that used in new U.S. currency, to produce a series of concentric circles on the license.

Within five years, the 23.6 million holders of a driver’s license or state identification card in California will receive the new card, officials said.

Despite the DMV’s recent use of holograms, ghost photos and other security measures, fraud is still a problem for the DMV.

After hearings on the issue last year, state officials estimated that 2,400 identities were stolen by license counterfeiters.

Although the figure is lower than some estimates, “2,400 is more than we want to have,” Haskins said.

But DMV officials said opportunities created by new technology, more than the vexing problem of driver’s license fraud, prompted them to redesign the licenses.

Maria Contreras-Sweet, secretary of the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, which oversees the DMV, said in a statement that Polaroid Corp. worked with the agency to develop the cards.

“We want to be on the cutting edge of protecting Californians from fraud and loss,” she said.