Counterfeit US ID's . . . from China?

The Washington Post reports:

The days when faking driver’s licenses was a cottage industry — often practiced in college dorm rooms by a computer geek with a laminating machine — have given way to far more sophisticated and prolific practitioners who operate outside the reach of U.S. law enforcement.

In an era when terrorism and illegal immigration have transformed driver’s licenses into sophisticated mini-documents festooned with holograms and bar codes, beating the system has never been easier.

Just wire money to “the Chinese guy.”

. . .

The “Chinese guy” — whose e-mail address is passed around on college campuses and among high school kids — is actually a Chinese company that mails untold thousands of fake driver’s licenses to the United States. They have been turning up in states from coast to coast.

To the naked eye — even the practiced eye of most bartenders and police officers — the counterfeits look perfect. The photo and physical description are real. So is the signature. The address may be, too. The holograms are exact copies, and even the bar code can pass unsophisticated scans.

“We’re seeing these false IDs being generated from the same source out of China,” said Steven Williams, chief executive of Intellicheck, which supplies detection equipment to federal agencies, law enforcement and businesses. “There’s a rampant distribution of false IDs . . . from China, from one source.”

The IDs have shown up in various states, each license carrying a mysterious hidden tip-off in the bar code that points directly to the same Chinese company.

There's more at the link.

This news troubles me very much. It's not because kids are getting hold of false ID's - they've been doing that for years. No, there are two more important things to worry about.

1. What is that Chinese company doing with all the (genuine) information that purchasers are providing to put on their fake ID's? Isn't this scheme tailor-made for identity theft? Think about it - real names, real birth dates, real addresses, even (I presume) real Social Security numbers, all provided by unthinking teens who will go on to have careers, save and invest money, and so on. What's to stop some canny hacker recording all this information, waiting a few years, then using it to fleece them of their assets? Even worse, what happens if some of these kids become military officers, or work in sensitive areas of commerce and industry? Can their personal information be used to blackmail them in future? "You bought a fake ID when you were younger. That's a felony! Now, either co-operate and tell us what we want to know about your employer, or we'll tell them about your crime."
2. Can terrorists and criminals in other countries also get their hands on these fake ID's? If so, they can cross the border already equipped with all they need to move about the USA without suspicion. That worries the hell out of me!
   

I hope the authorities are working to shut this down. It has too many potentially nasty ramifications to be allowed to go on unchecked.

Peter