A few weeks ago I received what seemed to be an innocuous phone call from a reporter inquiring about North Carolina's recent decision to begin using a new hologram on the face of their state's driver's license.  Shame on me, I should have known better.  No reporter call is ever "innocuous."

This reporter's far-fetched story then spread like wildfire among his followers in the blogosphere.  And considering those internet sources that were running with the story, I opted not to even address the issue further.  Why bother, right?  You can't reason with ideologues.

Now, in fairness, the reporter did quote me accurately in his story.  But the context in which he placed my quotes, and the paraphrasing he used to introduce my words, were less than that of a reputable and responsible journalist.  And quite frankly it's the kind of method that has led to the public's distrust of the media.

But now, almost three weeks after the story hit the blogosphere, and a few hate letters later, the story has finally bubbled up to the mainstream media.  So, I will set the record straight.

First, a hologram is a digital image with graphic elements buried within so that only those with special fraud detection skills can identify them.  It's really no different than the hologram on your MasterCard(R) which displays an image of the globe.   But if you follow this reporter's logic you would probably believe that MasterCard's(R) choice of the globe hologram on their credit cards is an attempt to create a one nation globe.

Now, hologram producers may argue with me that a hologram is much more sophisticated than what I have just articulated.  I'm sure it is.  But for the purposes of explaining this technology to the masses in real terms, this keeps it simple for all of us.  Understand, I am no "techy."

Second, the image on the hologram chosen by North Carolina, and designed by a working group made up of members of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, is that of the North American continent. 

The AAMVA members chose only one design for this common security feature for a number of reasons. 

A, they wanted to keep the design common so fraud detectors wouldn't have to be trained to recognize 51 different state holograms. 

And "B," because designing one consistent hologram for all states was much less expensive than designing 51 different ones.

So, let's put to rest once and for all any and all posts, threads, blogs and articles that take this discussion out of the realm of driver's license and ID security and into the land of make believe. 

Until next time, stay safe behind the wheel.

Jason D. King
VP, Public Relations and Info. Services
AAMVA
jking@aamva.org



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