Driver’s licence was an app that allowed users to create personalised — fake — driver’s licenses from any state in the Union. Note the passive tense. Apple’s pulled the two-year-old app after U.S. Senator Bob Casey made its removal a matter of national security.
Driver’s licence allowed users to import a photo of themselves and add their own personal information to an ID template for any of the 50 states. Problem is — many of the ID designs are still in use and will continue to be used for the next few years. The user can also send the completed ID to an email account, print, and laminate it. So unless you check for the UV strip, differentiating a fake from a real ID becomes difficult.
That didn’t sit too well with Senator Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, citing the possibility for criminals to “create a new identity, steal someone else’s identity” as well as for minors to buy booze. He sent a strongly-worded letter to Tim Cook and had the app removed within a few days — take that Coalition for a Secure Driver’s License.
“The ‘License’ application by DriversEd.com for Apple iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad allows users to electronically insert any digital photo and the biographic information of their choosing into a template for a driver’s licence of a state of their choosing,” said the Coalition for a Secure Driver’s licence in a statement from their earlier bid to have the app removed.
Of course, removing one fake ID app isn’t going to do much towards curbing alcohol sales to minors or impact terrorists’ efforts. Fake ID’s have been around as long as the real ones, they’re plentiful and easy to obtain if one is sufficiently motivated. So, just like their demands earlier this year to have apps alerting drivers to upcoming sobriety checkpoints and speed traps, Congress has simply made an example of one instance of the problem without actually addressing the underlying cause. [Cult of Mac via PC Mag – image: photomak / Shutterstock]