Pixel this: state offering digital driver’s license

New Jersey is 49th state to make the switch
for common ID cards
BY SHERRY CONOHAN
Staff Writer

CHRIS KELLY staff Jess Vasquez, an employee of Ocean Township Motor Vehicle, checks to make sure Long Branch’s Michelle Morgan has all the proper paperwork so she can get her new license.

EATONTOWN — The state’s new digital driver’s license has become available at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission office on Route 36.

The MVC office in the borough began issuing the more secure driver’s license Tuesday. It is the second MVC office to offer them, following Trenton, which began issuing them on Tuesday a week earlier.

Among other features, the license will have a digital photograph of the holder on it, along with that person’s digitalized signature, according to David Weinstein, a spokesman for the commission.

Weinstein said the driver’s license has a swipe strip on the back, much like a credit card, that will contain personal information about the person to whom it was issued, such as date of birth, eye color, hair color and the like. He said State Police are going to get the equipment needed to swipe the driver’s license to bring up that information on the screen of their computers.

The equipment will be much like that found at supermarkets that shoppers use when they pay for their purchases with a credit or debit card, he explained.

Rather than being on the forefront of this technology, Weinstein said New Jersey is on the "back front."

"We are the 49th state to have a digitalized license," he said. "Alaska is the only other state" which has not adopted the digitalized driver’s license.

Since driver’s licenses are issued for a four-year period, and their issuance dates are staggered, it will be a little over four years — until May 2008 — before all drivers will have one, according to Weinstein. He said everyone will have to have a photo on their license. The MVC office will take the pictures.

Weinstein said banners of different colors will indicate what kind of license it is — such as a driver’s license or boat operator’s license.

To get the new digitalized driver’s license, an applicant has to have six "points" of identification. Weinstein said this does not mean six different pieces of identification, but enough identification, which is weighted for its value, to add up to six points. A passport, for instance, is worth four points. An existing photo driver’s license counts for one point. A driver’s license without a photo is worth nothing, he said. Other items that do count for something include a social security card, a health insurance card, a professional license, a bank statement and a credit card bill.

Weinstein said that the new digitalized driver’s license has 22 security features. In addition to the photo and signature, the others include a hologram and a ghost photo that can be seen under an ultraviolet light.

There also is a new wrinkle to separate out those under the legal age for drinking alcoholic beverages. While all driver’s licenses now are horizontal, Weinstein said people under 21 will be issued vertical driver’s licenses.

Weinstein said the MVC will have some additional people on site at the Eatontown office initially to assist in issuing the digitalized license.

The transition is for Motor Vehicles itself," he added, "not the customer."