Jesse White - Illinois Secretary of State

Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White unveiled newly designed state drivers licenses and identification cards with enhanced security features. The design incorporates multiple layers of security, as well as an inventory control mechanism that ensures Illinois drivers' licenses and ID cards will remain among the most secure in the nation.

The newly designed drivers licenses and ID cards are now available at the Secretary of State Melrose Park Driver Licensing facility, which is serving as the pilot site prior to the roll out of the new licenses and ID cards. The equipment to issue the new drivers' licenses and ID cards will be phased in statewide starting Nov. 6 in southern Illinois. All Secretary of State drivers licensing facilities will be converted to the new technology by the end of January.

Residents with valid drivers licenses or ID cards do not need to obtain the newly designed cards, as the current design for existing cards remains valid until those cards expire.

The new security features include kinetic movement and color shifting designs, a UV feature, microtext and a laser feature that cannot be duplicated utilizing standard techniques often used in fraud attempts. Other new features include a ghost image of the photo and incorporation of the date of birth in two locations on the cards.

A new inventory tracking system also has been adopted to monitor and track the material used in card production. If a drivers license or ID card has not been properly issued in a drivers license facility using genuine materials, the card can be readily identified as fraudulent, and it can potentially be traced to the location of materials used to manufacture it.

Improved design features also include new colors across the card tops that indicate card types: red for driver's license and commercial driver's license, green for identification card and purple for temporary visitor driver's license.

Text included on the card fronts contains the same information, but is presented in a new way that improves readability and ease of use in verification of information.

Card backs for identification cards now include the text "For Identification Purposes Only, Not a License to Drive." The writable surface for organ and tissue donation witness signatures is omitted, as the state's First Person Consent law renders this consent unnecessary.

Additional information on the new drivers' license and ID cards is available at www.cyberdriveillinois.com.