The TSA is posting signs at airports to inform airline
passengers about Real ID requirements that begin in January 2018.
The Real ID Act, passed by Congress in 2005, established
minimum security-related requirements for state-issued driver's licenses and
identification cards. Among other provisions, the law establishes what data that
states must require before issuing a license or card and what data they must
subsequently store electronically. It also lays out what technology must be
encoded in the IDs and what data must be printed on the IDs.
Thus far, 25 states have complied with the law and 17 states
and territories have gotten extensions for compliance from the federal
government. Nine states -- Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana,
Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Washington -- aren't compliant. If
they remain noncompliant, residents of those states would have to present an
alternative ID at airport checkpoints effective Jan. 22, 2018.
Passports, permanent resident cards, trusted-traveler cards
and military IDs are among the alternatives that the TSA will accept.
Residents of states that have received an extension to the Real
ID Act have until October 2020 before they must obtain a Real ID or use an
alternative type of identification at TSA checkpoints.