Say cheese!

If you live in Arkansas, Indiana, Nevada and Virginia don’t say cheese at the DMV.  Apparently, those four states don’t want people to smile for their driver’s license picture – I happen to live in Nevada and didn’t smile by my own choosing.  Who would have thought a simple smile could defeat computers?  I guess smiling does help.

Driver’s license fraud is easier to achieve when the person on the license is smiling.  New, high-tech, software will send an alarm when two driver’s licenses have the same photo on them.  The only problem is smiling.  When the person is smiling, the software has a harder time matching the photos – kind of take the “high tech” out of this equation if you ask me.  Actually, Indiana, Nevada and Arkansas all allow a slight smile, but I guess you can’t be all teeth and gums!

“A total of 31 states do computerized matching of driver’s license photos and three others are considering it, says the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. Most say their software matches faces regardless of expressions. “People can smile here in Pennsylvania,” state Transportation Department spokesman Craig Yetter says.

In Illinois, photo matching has stopped 6,000 people from getting fraudulent licenses since the technology was launched in 1999, says Beth Langen, the state head of Drivers Services.”

Do I need to jump on Dell’s website and configure new computers for Indiana, Nevada, Virginia and Arkansas?  Even though their systems claim to be high tech other states don’t seem to have this problem.

I know this has to do with fraudulent licenses and indirectly with security, but I find it ironic that computers have probably played a role in allowing people to acquire fake licenses and it is computers that are being used to fight it.  Why don’t we all go out and have a cookout and let these computers fight amongst themselves?