Family Security Matters: REAL ID = National ID

A month ago, I wrote here and in a TechKnowledge article about the telling imagery that a company called L-1 Identity Solutions had used in some promotional materials. The cover of their REAL ID brochure featured an attractive woman’s face with her driver license data superimposed over it, along with her name, address, height, eye color, place of birth, political affiliation, and her race. This is where the national ID system advanced by the REAL ID Act leads.


Here’s another example. A group called Family Security Matters has reprinted on its site a blog post supporting the $80 million in grant money that the Department of Homeland Security recently announced, seeking to prop up the REAL ID Act. (I’ve written about it here and here.)


What’s interesting is not that a small advocacy group should support REAL ID, but the image they chose to illustrate their thinking: a man holding his “National Identity Card,” his fingerprint and iris images printed on it, and presumably programmed into it.

Were there ever any doubt that REAL ID was a national identity system and a step toward cradle‐​to‐​grave, government‐​mandated biometric tracking, Family Security Matters has helped clear that up.