One of the applications of the new technology to be tested is enhanced age verification. Police estimate many millions of fake driver licenses are in circulation nationwide and suggest that half of all high school students today may carry some sort of forged ID. The Journal of Studies of Alcohol reports that young drivers within certain blood alcohol level ranges are far more likely to be killed in single vehicle crashes than sober young drivers. It is also well known that people who have been denied licenses or had them revoked often rely on counterfeit licenses, posing another significant risk to traffic safety.
Because of the link between fake driver licenses and highway safety, the DOT-funded program -- called the "Operational Pilot of Digital Watermarking Reading for Driver License Authentication and Traffic Enforcement Support" -- aims to improve traffic safety and ID security by validating the cross-jurisdictional inspection and authentication capabilities of digitally-watermarked driver licenses.
Under the pilot, Digimarc will create a request for proposals inviting state DMVs to apply to participate in the pilot and help drive the requirements for testing operational aspects of inspecting digitally watermarked driver licenses in the field. Today, 10 states representing more than 20 percent of all yearly driver licenses issued in the U.S. have incorporated digital watermarking as an innovative, new layer of driver license security.
"In the battle against identity theft and fraud, digital watermarking adds a unique, new layer of machine-readable protection and authentication to the state-issued driver license, helping thwart would-be counterfeiters within and across state lines, "said J. Scott Carr, president, Digimarc Watermarking Solutions. "We applaud the Department of Transportation's leadership role in addressing these important safety issues. In the end, we believe this pilot and related efforts will substantially improve the safety of citizens and law enforcement on our roads and highways, while respecting citizens' privacy and supporting state efforts to issue secure identity credentials."
Digital watermarking provides a covert, machine-readable layer of security that offers DMVs and other issuers of secure IDs a powerful, new weapon in the fight against digital counterfeiting, identity theft, fraud and related activities such as underage drinking and driving. These new security features also have national security implications as they can be used to address many of the ID-related Homeland Security issues highlighted by the 9/11 Commission Report.
Law enforcement, DMV branch offices and retail environments with age-restricted products such as alcohol and tobacco are expected to test the fraud-reducing capabilities of digital watermarking during the pilot program.
