Today there is a news article on ABC action news titled:

VOTE NOW – Can YOU spot the fake ID?

The article is about how good fake IDs are these days and that authorities are cracking down on them.  The article even mentions that these new fake IDs pass scanner tests.   So… where is the news?

This article is no surprise to us.  There have been good and bad fake IDs for years.   I remember watching the CEO of a competitor on the news in 2007 wince as his product scanned a fake California drivers license the news reporter provided and passed it.  This poor CEO then had to state the ID was “good enough” to fool his scanner.  When will folks learn that ID Scanners are not Fake ID Detectors.  ID Scanners read the barcode of the license, extract name, address, date of birth information and then warn if the calculated age is under a legal threshold and then record the data.

The most interesting article we found recently was that about two thirds (2/3) of the IDs in the hands of minors are borrowed from older friends or siblings.   These are not Fake IDs.  These are valid IDs in the hands of minors who look like the picture on the ID.    So if your buying an ID Scanner to catch fakes, forget it.  An ID Scanner will help your employees with the age calculation process and help you prove that a minor presented a borrowed or fake ID when he claims he presented his real ID, but never think an ID scanner is the solution to detecting fake IDs.