# Is this what California Drivers License looks like?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [December 4, 2015, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366 "2015-12-04T00:18:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2015, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366/1 "2015-12-04T00:18:40Z")
Factual question here, but kinda mundane and pointless. So MPSIMS seems like the right place for this.
What do current (or recently-issued) California drivers licenses look like?
I just saw this article at the Daily Mail (U.K.) web site:
[Radicalized US Muslim clashed with his Jewish co-worker over religion two weeks before he and Pakistani wife killed 14 at office holiday party using huge arsenal of weapons and pipe bombs](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3344350/Devout-Muslim-citizen-Saudi-wife-living-American-Dream-identified-heavily-armed-duo-burst-office-holiday-party-slaughtered-14-leaving-baby-mother.html)
It includes a picture, purportedly an image of his California drivers license. It doesn’t look anything remotely like any CA drivers license I’ve ever seen. I think it must just be a document the DMV can print (or create electronically and e-mail) having the same basic information as a license, including photo, but it’s not at all an actual image of an actual license.
Amirite? Anyone ever see a CA drivers license that looks like this?
[Larger view of the image here.](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/03/22/2F09522100000578-3344350-image-a-47_1449181405081.jpg)
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### Author:  [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2015, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366/2 "2015-12-04T00:24:34Z")
No idea if that is what a California driver’s licenses looks like.
But at the bottom it states something about being a copy of DMV records. I suspect it is not a driver’s license, but rather a DL record. This would be consistent with what I deal with at work (not in the United States) where we have access to the driver’s license database and the printouts from there look nothing like a driver’s license.
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### Author:  [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2015, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366/3 "2015-12-04T00:26:14Z")
My latest was issued in January 2014 and looks nothing like the image.
[Here](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/e090f7ec-64bc-4e87-afc8-e66895903b37/dl627e.pdf?MOD=AJPERES)is what a CA driver’s license looks like. This is what licenses have looked like since 2010.
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### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2015, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366/4 "2015-12-04T00:26:51Z")
It might be one layer (the data layer) of what is used to create the card. Other layers would have holograms and emblems and unicorns and stuff like that; I’ll take a look at my expired license when I get home tonight and see if that’s a layer.
oh. Never mind; I know mine looks like the ones in **CFoHG** ’s link.
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### Author:  [@Hey\_Hey\_Paula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_Hey_Paula)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366/5 "2015-12-04T00:27:26Z")
Yes, that’s a printout of the information the DMV has on file, not a photocopy of the actual license.
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2015, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366/6 "2015-12-04T00:38:22Z")
I am OUTRAGED! that the Daily Mail does not have top-notch journalistic standards.
In other news, people on Facebook are “me too”-ing an article from the frickin’ NY Daily News. Have they actually read it? I can’t wait to hear Cosmopolitan’s take on the gold standard next.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2015, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366/7 "2015-12-04T01:32:37Z")
A real license has all sorts of stuff on it that the sample doesn’t. As mentioned above, there are holograms, inlays, raised dates, and other things designed to thwart changes.
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### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2015, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366/8 "2015-12-04T02:51:25Z")
Re: All the above responses: Yeah, thought so.
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2015, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366/9 "2015-12-04T03:05:20Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> A real license has all sorts of stuff on it that the sample doesn’t. As mentioned above, there are holograms, inlays, raised dates, and other things designed to thwart changes.
Don’t forget the actual license number.
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### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2015, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366/10 "2015-12-04T09:53:09Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#):
>
> Don’t forget the actual license number.
Yeah, kinda odd that the document shown in the Daily Mail article would not have that.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2015, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366/11 "2015-12-04T19:14:43Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> A real license has all sorts of stuff on it that the sample doesn’t. As mentioned above, there are holograms, inlays, raised dates, and other things designed to thwart changes.
True, but the picture on mine from 2014 is on the left side like the example, not on the right like the link in the OP.
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### Author:  [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2015, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366/12 "2015-12-04T19:45:03Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> True, but the picture on mine from 2014 is on the left side like the example, not on the right like the link in the OP.
Unless something’s changed since I was there, the pictures were on different sides for those 21+ at the time they got their license and for those under 21.
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### Author:  [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2015, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366/13 "2015-12-04T20:40:24Z")
> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> Yeah, kinda odd that the document shown in the Daily Mail article would not have that.
Really? This is the document they’re required to give out to anyone who provides a name and birthday, just to verify that a person is licensed to drive. There’s a reason it doesn’t show the person’s license number and address. To get that kind of information from the DMV you have to demonstrate some legal reason.
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### Author:  [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366/14 "2015-12-04T21:32:30Z")
I’m surprised no one has questioned the photo. Dude looks stoned. In my state, they’d make you open your eyes more fully.
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### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2015, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-california-drivers-license-looks-like/739366/15 "2015-12-04T22:57:07Z")
> [@guizot](#):
>
> Really? This is the document they’re required to give out to anyone who provides a name and birthday, just to verify that a person is licensed to drive. There’s a reason it doesn’t show the person’s license number and address. To get that kind of information from the DMV you have to demonstrate some legal reason.
I thought you had to demonstrate some legal reason to get the DMV to tell you _anything at all_.
@ **MeanOldLady** : It is different now for drivers under 21. For those, the license is laid out in portrait format (vertical) rather than landscape format (horizontal). The link given by **ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness** a few posts above shows an example. (If you don’t see it on your screen, scroll horizontally to the right to find it.)