I guess i was correct to be relieved that the powers that be decided they could ignore the slightly different version of my name on my driver’s licence and my passport, and issue me a real ID on the name on my passport. (Which i consider to be my full legal name, even if i don’t generally use all of it.)
I was quite anxious about that, as my passport lists my name as
Puzzle Straight Dope Gal
Whereas my driver’s license said
Puzzle D Gal
And my proof of residence was in the name
Puzzle Dope Gal
My bank actually made an error when i signed up, and has my last name as Dope Gal, but fortunately, you can’t tell that by looking at the printed statement.
It’s a little annoying that forms now want to list me as Puzzle S Gal, or worse, Puzzle Straight Gal, a name i have never used. But not annoying enough for me to do anything about it.
You actually might want to do something about that.
It was several such discrepancies that led to me having problems with RealID and needing to go to court because, apparently, people are incapable of getting my name right. A couple of the mutations made it into “official” databases and I had to pay to get it sorted out.
Okay, dumb question but what is “Real ID,” and why does it have Americans in a tizzy?
I’ve looked, and I’m glad to see that my Canadian passport functions as well as “Real ID.” So I don’t really care. I don’t often travel around the US by air, but I have, and my passport has always worked as identification. I need my passport to enter the United States, after all.
A RealID is now necessary to not only travel by air in the US but also to enter Federal buildings and facilities of several types. Requirements are anticipated to expand over time.
Alternatively, a passport can be used, but only half of Americans currently own a passport.
Unless you have an identity screw up, a passport is significantly more expensive, requires many of the same documents, and have longer wait times to receive. Only about half of US citizens own a passport because most of them don’t need one and therefore never went through the hassle of obtaining one. Although now a lot of folks are getting them as a backup to their driver’s licenses.
I don’t think i need to. The first and last name are correct, and one rarely needs to use a middle name. It’s mildly annoying, but not so annoying that i want to change my legal name, which I’d probably need to do to address it. I chose this full legal name, and it has the virtue of tying me plausibly to the name on my birth certificate (Straight Puzzle Dope) which might otherwise look like a different person.
No, i never used “Straight” as my name, my parents called me “Puzzle” from infancy, and when i went to school i told them that was my name. Back then, it wasn’t political to address a child by their preferred name, and everyone did so. So i changed the order shortly after i married, and adopted a new legal first and last name.
But I’m grateful that my state is less stupid than some, and was willing to give me real ID despite mildly inconsistent documents.
I think, with matching passport and real id, and a legal name change document that ties my current name to that on my birth certificate, I’ll be okay.
It’s a stupid requirement created in the wake of 9/11, that’s only just now been implemented. It generally takes the form of a driver’s license with an added star in the corner, and it’s supposed to verify your photo, name, legal status to reside in the US, and legal place of residence.
I didn’t get it until it became clear trump was likely to win the election, as i find it excessive and objectionable, and either my global entry card or my passport would have been sufficient to fly and enter public buildings. But with Trump on the horizon, i thought it possible that bearing real ID might save me some hassles.
Yet it was databases incorrectly giving me one, or a middle initial I never had, that triggered my problems with RealID.
Yes, you probably live in a less stupid state than I do. But if you were to move to my state for whatever reason the discrepancies in your records could halt your attempt to get a new license in my state. Also, it’s possible your state could get more stupid in the future, because the entire government is getting more stupid.
If you’re fine now, sure, that’s OK. Just be aware that might change in the future.
I don’t see the risk. I have clear documentation that my legal name is Puzzle Straight Dope Gal, and photo id connecting me to that documentation. All my important documents now match, except the birth certificate, and i have documentation of the legal name change, to connect me to the birth certificate. What’s the risk? And what documents could i get that would be safer?
Passport would be safest - but you already have that.
In my state:
If your document of name change is formal name change performed by going to court and standing in front of a judge you’re good.
If your document of name change is a marriage certificate and the name change does not conform to the limited interpretations of my state you would have a problem. My state allows only changes to a woman’s last name when married, it does NOT permit changing/adding/dropping middle names, including changing the order of middle names. They have to exactly match what’s on the birth certificate.
So… don’t move to Indiana?
Pretty sure mine is not the only state acting stupid about these things.
Mine is a court approved name change. My state didn’t allow me to change my first name upon marriage, and i also objected to the idea that a woman’s last name just changes when she marries. So i went through the courts and did it all at once.
And i changed my passport to the new name promptly. So those all match.
Not to minimize the hassles of real ID, but i think my documents are now in order.
It’s especially stupid because not all of the acceptable ID even verifies/displays the same info - I can use a passport/passport card which doesn’t display my address and doesn’t require me to submit proof of my address, but if I move tomorrow, and notify the DMV of my new address online, my new license will come back saying “not valid for Federal purposes”. (If I move tomorrow and don’t notify DMV , I can still use the old license with my now-incorrect address.) If I don’t have valid acceptable ID , that doesn’t mean I won’t be allowed to board a plane or enter a Federal facility - it just means I will undergo different screening which will probably take longer.
Much of the hassle now is because it’s relatively “new” and people need documents they haven’t seen in years. I didn’t need my birth certificate between 1994 and 2016 and I’ve never needed my marriage certificate - if I couldn’t find it , I’d have to order a new one. But I might not know where to order it from - I live in an urban area and it’s not uncommon for county/town/city borders to run through buildings. If the hospital where I was born or my wedding venue sat on a border , it would take extra time to get a copy if I first ordered it from the wrong city/town/county. Or maybe I thought I was born in New Jersey because that’s where my parents lived at the time but I was actually born in a hospital in Manhattan.
Some of the hassle is probably that conventions change over time - my passport and driver’s license have my middle initial while my son’s have his full middle name. Presumably, that’s because the convention at DMV changed in those intervening years because neither of us ever chooses to use the name or initial. Eventually, some of the problems will sort of die out - I’m sure it’s been decades since someone named “Charles” could get a license bearing the name " Chuck".
Really? I mean, I believe you, but this must be a state invention? Because I changed my address online a year and a half ago and never got any of that “not valid for Federal Purposes” nonsense. From REAL ID to REAL ID.
This is what we get with a vague federal mandate being separately and differently implemented by 50 states.
I’ve moved 5 times and two states since I first got my RealID. I’ve had none of the “not valid for federal purposes” nonsense @doreen reports.
Note I’m not suggesting she’s lying or mistaken. Just that her state is inventing requirements, or my states are ignoring requirements, versus whatever the Feds really asked / told the states to do.
In simple terms it’s an attempt to have all state driver’s licenses be issued using the same standard with a reasonable expectation that the person holding it is who they say they are. Each state had a different amount of documents needed to get a license. Some were more lax than others. In my state we still had no picture DLs into the 2000s. We went from being the most lax to being one of the most strict. It’s one of the reasons why I didn’t find getting a Real ID that difficult. We were basically there already.
You changed addresses without providing any proof of your new address and got a Real ID back with an address your state never verified even though one of the issues with Real ID is verifying residence? According to DHS the minimum requirements are
Visit your state’s driver’s licensing agency website to find out exactly what documentation is required to obtain a REAL ID. At a minimum, you must provide documentation showing: 1) Full Legal Name; 2) Date of Birth; 3) Social Security Number; 4) Two Proofs of Address of Principal Residence; and 5) Lawful Status.
I didn’t explicitly say this (although I guess I should have) - in my state you can’t submit proof of residence when you change the address online.( or at least you couldn’t when my son did it a year ago) You have to submit proof in person. My state also issues “standard” IDs and licenses which don’t meet Real ID requirements - not all states do. Although my son can probably still use his now-inaccurate Real ID for Federal purposes and he certainly could have if he hadn’t bothered to change his address.
As mentioned before: part of the issue is that the USA has no national standard universal ID document. And national consensus policy is to NOT have it. IDs are issued for specific purposes: international travel (passport), driving (license), military service access, etc. by the agency that regulates each activity.
Because of aspects of American sociocultural history, once driving licenses started including photographs they grew to be used as de-facto everyday ID documents, supplemented by state-issued ID cards in both cases these were things that the individuals had to seek out at their own bother and expense and could choose to forego if they could bear the inconvenience.
Problem was, a DL only verified that this person had passed a driving test in the issuing state. Each state had different standards for personal information they asked for and what of that they included in the card.
When “Homeland Security” was created, it was decided the federal government wanted state IDs to have a common standard of info gathered including legal-presence status so federal LEAs could more easily track them. Since they could not command the states to do that, they used the strategy of saying that for certain federally regulated activities (air travel, entering nuclear facilities, etc.) your ID needed to meet this standard. But again, they could not force every individual person to get one.
Implementation on the ground however was fragmented, slow, and some states just said we’ll do it if and when we can spare the budget for it, so the deadline for enforcement kept being pushed back and finally happened now.
That, and rules being set by men who face name changes far, far, far less frequently than women do and often are totally oblivious to this being a problem. Most married women’s legal names do not match their birth certificates thereby requiring them to haul around a “valid marriage” license along with their birth certificates for the rest of their lives whereas a man, who is not expected/pressured to change his name at marriage, only needs his birth certificate. By requiring most women to carry two documents instead of one I’d call it inherently discriminatory but I don’t get to set the rules or the laws around here.
Yes I did. Several times in fact. For in-state moves in both Missouri and in Florida.
But not when moving from MO to FL; that first time in FL I needed to show up in person with some proof of my new FL address to get my first FL RealID. Although how much that was them complying with RealID regs and how much that was just them complying with existing state law about not giving FL DLs to random tourists I have no idea. At that time I did NOT have to do any other proof of citizenship / legal alien residence, etc. It seems FL accepted that the fact I already had a MO RealID meant that stuff had already been done. So they got to see my new electric power bill and my old MO DL and that was it: I’m verified.
And I think this is the key. AFAICT some states are viewing RealID verification as a once-in-a-lifetime gateway to being permanently RealIDed. Others are reading it as every move or renewal or whatever requires an ab initio proof of your name(s) and right(s) to be in the USA from present day back to birth.
