Tag Archives for real id.
Surprising absolutely no readers of this website, the March 2025 REAL ID deadline isn’t going to happen. The first enforcement deadline, by the way, was in 2008.
Under a new proposed rule – that has not been finalized, even – full enforcement might not begin until May 2027. In the meantime, the plan is to hand a piece of paper to passengers whose IDs don’t meet the standards laid out in the 2005 Real ID Act telling them to get a new one.
The federal government has ‘no fly’ and ‘enhanced screening’ lists, where they check the names of passengers and decide under what conditions someone is allowed to travel, if at all. It’s a form of pre-crime profiling where people have been added to the list by mistake, for revenge, or for any number of reasons that you aren’t allowed to know. The government claims it’s exempt from judicial review.
This process is meaningless, though, if people can change the name they fly under. So in 2005 Congress passed requirements for IDs that are harder to fake. Since then, however, rules requiring people to actually have a ‘REAL ID’ have been kicked down the road.
For years TSA has been warning that if you don’t get a ‘REAL ID’-compliant drivers license you won’t be able to fly and I’ve explained that isn’t true because you can fly without ID, in fact people do it all the time.
The requirement of an ID to fly began as a ‘do something’ policy after the explosion of TWA flight 800. President Clinton demanded to be able to immediately announce new airline security measures, and told his National Security Council team to come up with some. Yet to this day around 700,000 people per year fly without showing valid ID.
It wasn’t until after TWA flight 800 that the U.S. government began requiring passengers to show ID. President Clinton wanted to be able to announce something to look like he was doing something after the event, since initially there was speculation that the explosion was terrorist-related rather than an accident.
Airlines have wanted customers to show ID for a long time because they don’t want their tickets to be transferable.
Under the system the TSA is contemplating, a private contractor would develop an app to ask the traveler challenge questions based on both government and commercial data about the person. It would then produce a pass/fail to be shown at the TSA checkpoint.
The TSA has been saying that starting October 1, 2020 they are only going to accept IDs at security checkpoints that are compliant with a 2005 law that’s been getting kicked down the road for years. There are still a few states that aren’t issuing these IDs, and many people in states that are haven’t replaced their drivers licenses with new ones.
The prospect of turning away passengers from flying en masse never seemed plausible one month before the Presidential election. The October 1, 2020 deadline, which has been pushed off for years, inevitably will be pushed off again.
Now, with coronavirus, we know what excuse the Department of Homeland Security is likely to use.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
