Thread: NC: False data gets driver's licenses for 27,000

Published: Mar 21, 2007 12:30 AM
Modified: Mar 21, 2007 03:03 AM

False data gets driver's licenses for 27,000

Dan Kane, Staff Writer

A state audit released Tuesday found that North Carolina has issued roughly 27,000 driver's licenses to motorists based on invalid Social Security numbers.

State Auditor Les Merritt said the problem lies with licenses issued under a system the state Division of Motor Vehicles no longer uses. The new system checks Social Security numbers before issuing licenses. The old system did not.

"The hole we discovered was that DMV did not review previously issued licenses," Merritt said in a news release. "That hole presents a potential threat to homeland security and exacerbates the problem of identity theft."

The audit raises worries that illegal immigrants might have used that hole to gain licenses, which are used to verify identity for employment or various services.

"A driver's license is like a master key that can grant broad access by unlocking multiple doors," Merritt said. "It is absolutely imperative to spend the resources to get a reliable database going forward and clean up all licenses that have been improperly issued."

Auditors don't know whether the invalid Social Security numbers were intentionally used to obtain licenses, said Chris Mears, a spokesman for the auditor's office. They are forwarding their findings to investigators, he said.

"We're assuming that some of those simply will be keypunch errors [by DMV clerks], but we thought that 27,000 was a big number," Mears said.

DMV Commissioner George Tatum said the percentage of driver's licenses with invalid Social Security numbers appears to represent far less than 1 percent of people with driver's licenses.

He said the DMV switched to the new system in March 2004 and had been trying to check motorists who had obtained licenses before then but had not reviewed all of them.

Roughly half of the 27,000 invalid Social Security numbers appear to have never been assigned, while the rest belonged to people who had died, the audit said.

About 14,500 of the suspect licenses have since expired or been revoked, the audit said. Mears said the DMV has to be vigilant in case those people seek to renew their licenses. The audit said the drivers could also use their licenses to obtain licenses or identification cards in another state.

Since taking office in 2005, Merritt has been checking the use of invalid Social Security numbers among state employees and those obtaining driver's licenses. In some cases, the probes have identified illegal immigrants. Mears said the driver's license audit stemmed from a check into the use of invalid Social Security numbers by N.C. Central University employees.

Some of those employees told auditors that they had gotten hired by using their driver's licenses for identification purposes, even though those licenses were generated with invalid Social Security numbers.

"Here they were producing valid ID that was legitimate on its face," Mears said. "And so, seeing that, we thought we should investigate because there might be a broader problem."

Tatum said the Division of Motor Vehicles will identify those licenses generated with invalid Social Security data and go after anyone who knowingly provided false information: "We will make sure that anyone who defrauded our system is properly charged and brought to justice."

Other states have conducted similar driver's license audits. In Pennsylvania, a 2002 audit found 30,000 instances where the Social Security number provided to the motor vehicle department did not match the names of the people who were issued the licenses.

http://www.newsobserver.com/141/story/555850.html

A total of 57,000 illegal driver's licenses...and that's only two states. What would we find out if all the states ran these audits???

A very shocking number.

Originally Posted by NotGoingToTakeItAnymore

A total of 57,000 illegal driver's licenses...and that's only two states. What would we find out if all the states ran these audits???

If this was ran in all states, I have a feeling we'd see numbers spanning seven digits or more.

27,000 is huge. And the fraud will continue and spread throughtout the U.S. They can now apply for a license in another state just by showing the license they have now. I bet the average illegal alien has 2 or 3 of these already.

Originally Posted by firecracker

27,000 is huge. And the fraud will continue and spread throughtout the U.S. They can now apply for a license in another state just by showing the license they have now. I bet the average illegal alien has 2 or 3 of these already.

You're right firecracker.

It happened here http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... an+mathews

That's why they were coming in here by the bus loads.

But we don't want to worry the NC legislature now. They're too busy with banning smoking in public places.

Added to Home Page:
http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=N ... =0&thold=0

Non-protection of american citizenships seems to be active at places other than our federal government.

Something fishy here. It's been known for years that North Carolina is the go to state for illegal aliens in search of drivers' licenses. And now NC officials claim astonishment that a new system of checking Social Security numbers has revealed 27,000 bad numbers, and that "some" were those of illegal aliens?

Yeah, right, it was just an oversight. Over and over and over. ..