The law required the Secretary of Transportation to issue within eighteen months regulations governing any driver's license or identity cards to be accepted for any official purpose by a federal agency. The documents were required to include: full legal name, date of birth, gender, license or ID card number, digital photograph, address, and signature of the individual. In addition, cards were required to contain physical security features designed to prevent tampering, counterfeiting, or duplicating for fraudulent purposes. They also had to conform to specified requirements for a common machine-readable technology. States would be required to confiscate a driver's license or ID card if any of the security features were compromised. The regulations would include standards for documentation required by the applicant for a license or ID card and procedures for verifying the documents. States retained the right to determine what categories of individuals (for example, legal or illegal immigrants) were eligible for a license.
The law required that within one year the Commissioner of Social Security would restrict issuance of replacement Social Security cards for any individual to three in one year or ten in a lifetime; create minimum standards for verification of documents to be submitted to obtain initial or replacement Social Security cards; and add death and fraud indicators to verification systems used by employers, state agencies, and other entities. The commissioner was also required to improve controls for issuing Social Security numbers (SSNs) to newborns to prevent multiple numbers being issued to one child and to avoid fraud. The law also created an interagency task force to develop methods to prevent counterfeiting, tampering, theft, and alteration of Social Security cards. Finally, it amended the Social Security Act to prevent states from displaying SSNs on driver's licenses, motor vehicle registrations, or any other document issued to an individual for identification.
The law charged the Secretary of Health and Human Services with establishing minimum standards for birth certificates for use by federal agencies for any official purpose. This included requiring state or local issuing officials to certify the birth certificate. States would be required to use safety paper or other methods to prevent tampering, counterfeiting, or other birth certificate fraud. Also, procedures would be established for verifying proof of identity in issuing birth certificates, with additional security measures for issuing a birth certificate to someone other than the applicant (parents, adoptive parents, etc.).
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