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Comment by realusername | Hacker News Reader

Is that seriously how the driving license looks like in the US? It looks like a student card, I understand why it's easy to duplicate now.

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Drivers licences are issued by the states, so the quality of licences vary. Each state comes up with their own implementation, which can be as secure as they see fit. If you have any friends from Pennsylvania and Minnesota you should ask to compare their licences; only one should seem difficult to reproduce.

There really is no national minimum on the security of a drivers license. Since a drivers license can be used to board a domestic flight, there is something called the REAL ID Act that attempts to set a federal standard for state issued licenses. But other than that the states are mostly on their own with regards to implementation.

Don't the REAL ID requirements make this much less true than it used to be? A lot of states are catching up now due to the consequences of not doing so.

Compared to what? I've seen much simpler driver's licenses from other countries. Up until recently (2013 maybe) the French driver's license was literally a piece of pink paper with a picture glued to it.

http://flawlessfakeids.com/wp-content/uploads/French-Fake-Dr...

But a drivers license is not a valid proof of identification here

Surely unlicensed drivers are at least as valid a concern. Most fake IDs I've seen are non-driver IDs.

Compared to Germany for example with a bunch of holograms and whatnot: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/DE_Licen...

In contrast to e.g. the French, our drivers licence is a valid means of identification though.

That looks similar to many of the new US state IDs due to increased security requirements of REAL ID. My Washington, DC license has a holograms and a neat translucent panel where you can see my photo if you hold it up to the light. I would guess it is very hard to fake.

That's the standard European driving license, which everyone has used since 2013, but many countries used from much earlier (2006-ish?).

This can prove your name and age, but not your nationality.

That's a fair point, you can't use a EU driver's licence for traveling.

Same in Austria, a pink piece of paper until a couple years ago.

http://diepresse.com/images/uploads/5/e/b/1299947/ansturm_sc...

p.s. your link is broken:

> The owner of this website (flawlessfakeids.com) does not allow hotlinking to that resource

Yes but in France you have an ID card, you don't need the driving license to identify you.

France probably has a proper ID card and doesn't have to use the driver's license as ID. So the driver's license is just that and since whenever you're stopped by police while driving they can verify you actually having one duplication isn't a real risk.

It looks easier than it is. There are holograms all over the cards that don't photograph well.

Depends on the state. Virginia's would be hard to fake since is has a transparent oval in the card with your face floating in it

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