How do you have to prove your identity to renew your driver's license?

@jerzgirl (9208)
United States
May 30, 2008 10:53pm CST
A little over four years ago, just before the infamous resignation of our formerly closeted governor, New Jersey changed to a digitalized licensing program than require several categories of identification totaling 6 points in order to get or renew a driver's license. We were one of the last states, as it was, to enter the age of photo licenses, but now they were taking another step forward in order to prevent fraud and the potential of terrorists obtaining otherwise legal IDs. Of course, I grumbled and groused about it because this meant that even though I had a photo ID and even though I had already jumped through hoops the first time showing my birth certificate as well as my marriage certificate showing my name change (which is odd because I had always had a license in this state previously under my married name - but who looks up the past, except those of us needing to renew?), I had to get my birth certificate again and my marriage certificate from a different state despite their having already seen them previously. Well, today was the last business day of May and, of course, my license would expire after tomorrow, so I grabbed my newly acquired copy of my marriage license (courtesy of my ex), my passport (which they would accept as a primary ID source), proofs of residence and trucked my way to the DMV. It was actually more simple than I had anticipated - they only needed my old DL, my marriage cert, and my Social Security card to verify my identity, have me pay the $24 for a 4 year license and opt in or out of a new photo (I opted in). It wasn't half bad, other than I wasn't the only one who had waited until the last day! LOL However, even these kinds of precautions aren't going to prevent those people hell-bent on committing fraud from doing so. http://www.nj.gov/oas/newreleases06/pr20061023.html http://www.njdcj.org/releases/2006/layton_0828.htm http://www.njdcj.org/releases/2006/mccross_0606.htm These are but a few, which goes to show that there is NO foolproof system to prevent fraud. We just need to be aware! So, now that you know about NJ's method of proving identity to prevent fraud, how does your state attempt to prevent fraud and prove identity? If you're not from the US, how does your country issue driver's licenses?
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