Where your driver’s license may not get you on airplanes in 2016

The regulations were originally slated to take effect in 2008, but the act was subjected to a number of delays.

If the federal government does not grant an extension to non-compliant states, individuals in those states will soon be required to use a federally-approved ID such as a passport to board an airplane. The act makes it harder to obtain a driver’s license with counterfeit records.

Homeland Security officials want states to begin complying with a decade-old law that requires them to comply with federal standards when issuing driver’s licenses.

“We are pleased with the support of the Governor and the members of the General Assembly who continue to work with our department to improve our driver services division to better serve our growing state”, Gibbons said.

California is one several states which has not complied with the law yet. The statute is in part a response to the suggestion of the 9/11 Commission, which noted that four of the 19 hijackers used state-issued ID cards to board planes. However, any restrictions on air travel won’t go into place without at least 120 days’ notice, and no state has received such a notice yet.

Except for New Hampshire, all of these states’ waiver extensions are set to expire on October 10, 2016.

Five US territories, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa, whose citizens generally fly to travel because they live on remote islands, are also non-compliant with Real ID and face the expiration of extensions in 2016.

These states, along with Washington, D.C., already have issued driver’s licenses that comply with the Real ID Act.

A particular concern cited by privacy and civil liberties groups is that Real ID would transform state-issued driver’s licenses into the equivalent of a national identification card, which has never existed in the United States.

They include Alabama; Colorado; Connecticut; Delaware; Florida; Georgia; Hawaii; Indiana; Iowa; Kansas; Maryland; Mississippi; Nebraska; Nevada; Ohio; South Dakota; Tennessee; Utah; Vermont; West Virginia; Wisconsin; and Wyoming.