BILL ANALYSIS
AB 468
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Date of Hearing: April 2, 2001
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION
John Dutra, Chair
AB 468 (Cohn) - As Amended: March 26, 2001
SUBJECT : Duplicate driver's licenses
SUMMARY : Requires the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to
inspect photo ID's or its own photographic files prior to
issuing a duplicate driver's license. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires DMV, prior to issuing a duplicate driver's license,
to obtain from the applicant satisfactory proof of his or her
identity, including a valid identification document that
contains a photograph of the applicant.
2)Requires DMV to verify the applicant's identity by inspecting
its own photographic files from the licensee's prior license.
EXISTING LAW requires an applicant for a duplicate driver's
license to provide satisfactory proof that the original license
has been lost, destroyed, or mutilated.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS : The bill is intended to deal with one of the means
by which "identity theft" is commonly perpetrated in California.
In the situation addressed by the bill, the thief applies for a
duplicate license in the name of an unsuspecting licensee,
simply by claiming to be that person and asserting that his or
her original license has been lost or destroyed. If successful,
the identity thief can then establish credit, write checks,
apply for jobs, or do any number of things in the name of the
victim. When this practice came to light last year, DMV began
to tighten its procedures to assure that applicants for
duplicate licenses were indeed the persons they claimed to be.
This bill would confirm in statute one of the major
recently-initiated DMV reforms meant to deter identity theft.
Similar to this bill, both AB 125 (Leach) and SB 766 (Karnette)
would require DMV to check its photographic files prior to
issuing a duplicate driver's license. However, unlike this
bill, the measures authored by Assemblywoman Leach and Senator
Karnette do not allow DMV to accept other forms of photo ID in
AB 468
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lieu of checking its own files. In 2000, Assemblywoman Leach
authored AB 2382 which would have required DMV to check its
photographic files as a condition of issuing any duplicate
driver's license. That bill passed this committee unanimously
but died on suspense in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Current DMV policy lists several forms of documentation as being
adequate to identify the applicant for a duplicate license
(e.g., a passport, military ID, US Citizen ID, or the mutilated
license itself). By allowing these forms of identification to
be offered by applicants, both DMV policy and this bill allow
DMV to minimize processing delays while assuring that duplicate
licenses are issued only to appropriate persons.
Suggested Committee amendments : As drafted, AB 468 applies
strictly to driver's licenses. Presumably, an identity thief
could also perpetrate his or her crime by use of a fraudulently
obtained identification card issued by DMV. Consequently, the
new DMV policy on duplicate driver's licenses applies to
duplicate ID cards as well. The author may therefore wish to
amend this bill so that its provisions apply to ID cards issued
by DMV.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
None received
Opposition
None received
Analysis Prepared by : Howard Posner / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093