Why (EVVE) RIDE Initiative may lead States to Real ID certification

E-Verify’s RIDE may be the other Real ID database

BTC- The following statements are based on a reorganized paraphrase of a 2008 California Real ID Certification quarterly report.

Upon reading the Customer Impact portion of the report, I discovered requiring license applicants to provide a SSN# or W-2 forms is part of a State’s ability to become Real ID certified or materially compliant.  This particular benchmark may sound redundant if your State has adopted the E-Verify system.  E-Verify currently uses a web-based data entry system known as EVVE and SAVE, for immigrants.

“There are five national verification systems required by the REAL ID Act. However, only two (legal presence and SSN verification) of the five required electronic verification systems exist today. The remaining three systems for passport verification, birth verification and the all-drivers pointer system still require development.”

“Electronic verification” became a common phrase read throughout the document as a key part of Real ID compliance. It is not a jump to connect that E-Verify may actually be the missing link in public awareness, recognizing it as the other Real ID database.

“The development of a national DL/ID verification system is required to achieve full compliance of the final REAL ID regulations. This system would be used to ensure the applicant has terminated, or is terminating, the DL/ID card issued by another state prior to the issuance of a new DL/ID card.”

Here is what the RIDE initiative would do according to a DHS Privacy Impact Assessment  :

“The Records and Information from Department of Motor Vehicles for E-Verify (RIDE) initiative seeks to increase the effectiveness of E-Verify by automating motor vehicle document (e.g. driver’s license, driver’s permit, or state-issued ID card) verification between state Motor Vehicle Agencies (MVA) and E-Verify employers. In approximately 95% of the more than 12 million employment authorization queries E-Verify received during FY2010, employees used a driver’s license, driver’s permit, or state-issued ID card to establish their identity. The RIDE initiative enhances E-Verify by providing the ability to validate the information entered by an employer from an employee’s driver’s license, driver’s permit, or state-issued ID card against MVA data.

E-Verify determines if the expiration date of the driver’s license, driver’s permit, or state-issued ID card as entered by the employer indicates that the employee presented an unexpired document to the employer. If E-Verify determines that an expired document was presented, E-Verify prompts the employer to enter a document that was not expired on the date of hire.”

E-Verify as RIDE would be a national database which would exactly determine if a State drivers license is “terminating” or expiring. It is now painfully obvious that E-Verify as RIDE would require you to have a nationalized ID card to legally work in America, as an American or an immigrant.  It is designed to collect drivers license information, permits and State issued ID cards.

“The E-Verify program may share relevant driver’s license, driver’s permit, or state-issued ID card information (as entered into E-Verify) with state MVAs for verification purposes.”

This national ID database would be administered by the information clearing house known as, AAMVA.

“E-Verify is leveraging the existing secure framework and applications provided by AAMVAnet to connect to MVA systems for the purpose of verifying the information on an employee’s driver’s 
license, permit, or state-issued ID card, as presented for establishing identity on Form I-9. E-Verify provides new fields for employers to enter relevant identity document information from Form I-9 as part of the RIDE enhancement. The MVA databases contain biographical information collected from individuals who have applied for a driver’s license, driver’s permit, or state-issued ID card through a state MVA. The state MVA owns the data in the system that is being queried by E-Verify. This connection is strictly limited to the transfer of relevant driver’s license, driver’s permit, or state-issued ID card information for the purposes described in this PIA Update. 

MVA systems do not retain any data transferred as a result of an E-Verify query, nor does this connection permit MVA access to the E-Verify system or its records. Information from the MVA databases helps to verify the documents an individual presents to establish identity in the employment eligibility process.”

The MVA systems won’t hold that information, but AAMVA will! Mississippi, the only State to pilot the RIDE initiative, might be exactly right to demand the US government try a different federal contractor – at least one who isn’t in the data brokerage business.