As if REAL ID Weren't Enough

States' motor vehicle departments may be in for a treat: Incorporating a national standard for screening applicants in state and federal sex offender registries before issuing driver’s licenses.

The Government Accountability Office released results of a study this week that looked at the impact that such a requirement would have on states, noting that while 22 states use some form of driver’s license-related process to encourage registration or provide additional monitoring of convicted sex offenders, none have screening processes that compare driver’s license applicants’ information against both the state’s sex offender registry and the FBI’s national registry.

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 requires states to collect information about resident sex offenders and submit that information to the attorney general for inclusion in the National Sex Offender Registry (NSOR), maintained by the FBI. Most states’ sex offender registries are centrally maintained by a state criminal justice agency and need to be routinely updated â€" a challenge because sex offenders move and fail to comply with self-reporting requirements. Screening individuals against a state’s sex offender registry database when applying for or renewing a driver’s license would help solve that problem.

Fair enough, but what kind of burden does that place on states? A substantial one, according to the study. Most of the motor vehicle agencies in the 26 states surveyed said that “moderate to major modifications” to current IT systems would be needed, with major expense accrued from changes to software in particular. Officials in one state said that seven of the motor vehicle agency’s interrelated systems would need extensive software modifications, and officials in another state said that the types of software used to issue different types of licenses and collect fees are governed by complex rules and procedures â€" all of which would be impacted by additional screening processes.

So, just as state governments and their motor vehicle departments try to comply with the just released REAL ID requirements, yet another expensive, complex and controversial process requirement has been placed on the table. At least they know what they may be in for.