It gets real tomorrow, with the enforcement date (sort of) for REAL ID at federal installations and airports. But what about the privacy of the data behind REAL IDs?

Bela Kumar of Jumio Corporation was recently interviewed by CNBC for an article about REAL ID and the data sharing behind it.

As can be expected, some people are very concerned about what this means.

“[C]oncerns persist among privacy professionals that the next step will be a federal database of driver’s license information, which is bad from a privacy and cybersecurity standpoint, said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union.

“‘The more information the government has, the more the government might use that information,’ said Jodi Daniels, founder and chief executive of Red Clover Advisors, a privacy consulting company. ‘But that’s not what’s happening now,’ she added.”

Kumar addressed what IS happening now, and whether our personally identifiable information (PII) is protected.

“States have been issuing driver’s licenses for many years, and personal information is already being stored. The expectation is that the same controls apply to Real ID, said Bala Kumar, chief product and technology officer at Jumio, an online mobile payment and identity verification company. ‘States have already been managing this for many years,’ Kumar said.”

If you continue to read the article, you’ll also see a statement from the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators that echoes what Jumio said.

But as a former IDEMIA employee, my curiosity was piqued.

Has anyone ever gained unauthorized access to a state driver’s license database?

So I checked, and could not find an example of unauthorized access to a state driver’s license database.

But I DID find an example of unauthorized access to driver’s license DATA that was processed by a third party. The State of Louisiana issued a notice that included the following:

“On May 31, 2023, Progress Software Corporation, which developed and supports the MOVEIt managed file transfer platform, notified all customers across the globe, including [Louisiana Office of Motor Vehicles], of a zero-day vulnerability that an unauthorized party leveraged to access and acquire data without authorization. Upon learning of the incident, immediate measures were taken to secure the MOVEIt environment utilized to transfer files. A thorough investigation was conducted, and it was determined that there was unauthorized acquisition of and access to OMV files in the MOVEIt environment….

“The information varied by individual but included name and one or more of the following: address, date of birth, Social Security number, driver’s license, learner’s permit, or identification card number, height, eye color, vehicle registration information, and handicap placard information.”

Well, at least the hacked data didn’t include weight. Or claimed weight.

Cybersecurity professionals know that you cannot completely prevent these hacks. Which explains the “risk” in third party risk management. Progress Software has been around for a long time; I worked with Progress Software BEFORE I began my biometric career. But these hacks (in this case, CVE-2023-34362 as documented by CISA) can happen to anyone.

Be cautious, and remember that others with good intentions might not be cautious enough.