Drivers, Dmv Face New Reality
The North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles has begun using digital face-recognition technology in an effort to catch identity thieves. The initiative, part of “Operation Stop Fraud,” will use software to compare the photos of North Carolina drivers to photos on federal terrorism watch lists.
The process will also compare the photos of people who are renewing their North Carolina driver’s licenses with a database of existing photos of North Carolina drivers.
The database, compiled by the state DMV, contains 16 million photos dating back to 1996, which will allow the state to make sure that the previous photos of a driver match with the photo on their renewed license.
Photos that identify a person by different names will be investigated for the possibility of fraud by local law enforcement.
The face-recognition system is produced by Billerica, Mass.-based Viisage Technology, which has seven states as clients of its driver’s license system. North Carolina is in the process of upgrading the security measures for its digital driver’s licenses.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center(NLECTC) from the News Observer (NC) (10/01/04) P. A1; Siceloff, Bruce.