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EDITORIAL: Do-it-yourself licensing? Is it truly abuse-proof?Aug 18, 2011 (The Santa Fe New Mexican - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- To Santa Fe-area state Sen. Phil Griego, applause -- mas o menos -- for his efforts against New Mexico's nightmarish driver's license system. Despite the advent of private -- for an extra fee -- motor-vehicle and motorist-licensing offices, vast numbers of citizens spend even vaster amounts of time trying to obtain or renew licenses of one kind or another; it's a half-vast process, complicated by budget and personnel cuts. Griego sponsored a law last year which, in time, could ease many a fellow citizen's pain: It provides for online licensing, at least for those renewing their driver's licenses. But don't hold your breath waiting to tap in: Federal guidelines for standardizing information first must be met -- perhaps by February. Then there'll be a bidding process for setting up a computer program. There, things could get tricky: While online processing is continually being streamlined, there'll have to be safeguards against hackers, counterfeiters or both. Driver's licenses, after all, are de facto national-identification cards -- to board an airplane, to get a hotel room and to carry out an increasing number of transactions. If applicants don't have to go face-to-face with steely-eyed desk clerks, some might feel free to tinker with data, and maybe even the highly touted tamper-proof photos on today's licenses. It's an ongoing cat-and-mouse game. Once New Mexico's online licensing system is up and running, though, other problems are likely to arise. For example, folks will be allowed to renew twice via computer -- for eight years each. So it would be 16 years before they'd have to show up at the Motor Vehicle Division or its commercial variants. Hmm. How different might some of us look even a handful of years after landing a license? And by 15 or 16 years, there would be the predictably reversed, or perversed, scenes out of Oscar Wilde's novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray: There, the portrait ages rather than the protagonist, who has sold his soul to keep his youth; in real life, the now-aged applicant makes an appearance looking little like the one photographed so many years ago. What mischief might a fattened, thinned, wrinkled or Botoxed license-holder commit? Maybe none; maybe much. Supposedly, drivers would have to go in for a new mug shot if their looks change. By how much? And who's to judge? A traffic-trap cop? A magistrate? A cosmetologist? A phrenologist? Loss of sight, too, is hypothetically covered. But how many will fail to report it, figuring "I'm just going down to the grocery; there are never pedestrians on that route ..." MVD officials insist that they've got federal approval for such long-term licensing -- but that could change the first time some now-obese and hard-to-peg offender pulls off some kind of ID-dodging crime; Big Brother would be back with a vengeance. Technology, in time, might ride to the rescue with some kind of photo-freshening via laser or other do-it-yourself-at-home gadget. We hope so; dealing with driver's licenses is a dreary undertaking, and we're all for ways of hot-wiring it -- but we're wary of the mischief that could be made of Sen. Griego's well-intentioned reform. The longer this new system takes reaching reality, the better the chances that abuse can be headed off. To see more of The Santa Fe New Mexican, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.santafenewmexican.com/. Copyright (c) 2011, The Santa Fe New Mexican Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. |