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Igelau

So I'm thinking my state-issued driver's license might be fake. Some of its qualities:

- Does not have any raised lettering

- Has weird edges around my hair from the shadows that look just like the ones the author called Photoshop evidence

- The hologram looks like crap. Nice to see that Massachusetts doesn't skimp on it the way $STATE does.

- The aspect ratio of the picture is squished because they just used my last photo. COVID, you know.

- Clearly says "NOT FOR REAL ID PURPOSES" which I know refers to "RealID", but still makes me laugh.

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A large portion of states contract their driver's license printing equipment (on a maintenance & operation basis) to the same company, which I believe used to be a division of Polaroid but has been bought and sold since then. So many of the norms that this article mentions are specific to that equipment and to many US states, but not to all of them. There are still some states that use relatively commodity (uncontrolled) plastic stock and transfer or sublimation printers, that you can get on eBay used for under a thousand. You can imagine that results in more counterfeiting which encourages states to switch to the more expensive and controlled equipment and stock.

Raised print is particularly variable, a lot of states don't use raised print. As I understand it, it's done by a specific machine that is especially costly (the rest of the laser features mostly come already done from the stock manufacturer).

Edit: it's L-1 Identity Solutions. I believe the ID card printing component used to be with Identix before they merged with a newer company to form L-1.

My DC license from ~2012 was just 2 decals stuck to a white plastic card. No raised lettering. The front decal started to peel back after a few years. It sure looked like a fake ID.

This kind of leads into the thing I was wondering about when reading the article: What about false positives? What are the consequences of denying entry to someone who did, in fact, have a real ID? Could they potentially sue the bar?

I don’t think there would be any standing for a lawsuit. The bar can deny entry or kick you out for any reason. You’re not entitled to entry.

The top of my ID photo has a fade-to-background, but I'm bald and white so the top of the photo loses contrast faster than the designer probably expected and as a result it looks like I am vanishing into thin air.

Run for it Marty!

He said he was being erased from existence, not that it was the Libyans to whom he sold a shoddy bomb casing full of used pinball machine parts!

edit: some folks need to go rewatch Back to the Future...

The pictures on a lot of Arizona identity cards/licenses literally disappeated entirely after a few years. This was like in the late 2000s, and you had to order replacements after a while.

I feel like my shadow is only half as dark as other people's.

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