You've just discovered your wallet is missing. Maybe you misplaced it, maybe someone snatched it.
Who knows? What matters is that every piece of vital information about you - from your social security number to your bank card and driver's license - may now be in someone else's hands.You might have panicked a year ago. You'd have picked up the telephone and placed half a dozen calls to creditors and state agencies to cancel your old cards and order new ones.
But this is 1997, and Utah now issues a smart card driver's license. Besides your Blockbuster video rental card, photos of the kids and five bucks, it's the only other thing in your wallet.
Although the smart card license also has your fishing license and bank debit card on it, you're not worried. The debit card is useless without a personal identification number.
And since the state has a digital photo of you stored in its data base, there is no way anyone else can get a new license issued using your personal information.
All it takes is a single telephone call to get the card replaced.
Sound like science fiction? It's not.
The Utah Driver License Division will start issuing smart card licenses in the second half of 1997, most likely becoming the first state in the nation to do so.
Any new or renewed license will be issued as the smart card, and anyone who wants can get one.
Several states are considering smart card licenses, including Virginia, which is several steps behind Utah.
Utah's foray into cutting edge driver's license technology is mostly a matter of timing. The division's contract with the current provider of license photographs will expire next June, and the state wants to move to digital photos. It makes sense to go all the way and adopt smart card technology at the same time, said Bart Blackstock, driver services bureau chief.
In the next several weeks, the division will seek proposals from private companies interested in teaming up on the smart card license. The public/private partnership will help offset the cost of the cards, which runs about $9 each, Blackstock said.
The partnership also will jump start Utah's foray into electronic commerce, which Gov. Mike Lea-vitt touts as one destiny of the Information Age.
Most of all, it will give Utahns unprecedented, three-tiered security for their most-used personal identification badge.
The first level of security will come from the digital image used on the license. Already, 32 states use digital photo images, which can be stored in computer data bases and used to verify a person's identity.
"We may not know who you are the first time you get your photo taken, but that's who you're going to be (in the future)," Blackstock said.
In the future those stored pictures could be shared between licensing divisions, states and law enforcement agencies, reducing chances that a stolen license could be used to build an identity in another locale.
The license would carry the same information on its face as current licenses do. The list of personal characteristics serve as the card's second identity check.
Finally, personal data also would be held in the card's 8kilobyte microprocessor chip and on a bar code. The state will likely use both the chip and the bar code because machines that can read the chips aren't likely to be widely available immediately.
Together, the three features will create a license that's about as hard to alter as a fingerprint.
"It's very difficult to tamper with a chip," Blackstock said. "The real bad guys are going to do it any way, but we can make it difficult enough to do for all but the top professionals."
Law enforcement officers will be able to run the cards through card readers to record the sort of information they now must take down by hand.
Some day, the license could hold other state or local government documents, such as a hunting or fishing license, a food stamp account, or library card.
For now, the other applications on the card will depend on what the state's private partner makes available and what each individual chooses to put on it. The card could become the basis for an "electronic wallet" and the key to spurring electronic commerce, said Gordon Peterson, state chief technology officer.
"We want to allow state agencies to be anchor tenants to get the concept moving," Peterson said.
Both Peterson and Blackstock acknowledge that a key to the smart card project will be educating the public that information on the card can be safeguarded and kept distinct - so government isn't reading your banking information and vice versa.
And as you might expect, that security will cost time and money.
Utahns will pay more for the licenses, though Blackstock couldn't project how much more. And they'll be issued a temporary license for about a week while applications they select are added to the card, which will be delivered by mail.
One issue yet to be resolved is what to do when a license is confiscated. Now it's just a matter of taking the license, but that won't be an option if the card bears other applications.
An option the division is considering is placing the words "driver license" in an easily accessible spot and then using a paper punch to delete the words if the license is revoked. The individual could then continue to use the other applications on the card, Blackstock said.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Smart card
Integrated circuit
Area punched out if drivers license revoked.
Holographic images on card surface.
Digital photo
Note: Bar code and other applications on back of card.