Call it an identity crisis with a very literal twist.
Thousands of Michigan residents got an unexpected shock this week when their newly issued enhanced driver’s licenses and state ID cards arrived in the mail bearing the photo of someone they had never met.
About 8,200 cards produced on August 26 were printed incorrectly because of a vendor error involving Idemia, the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office said on Sept. 5.
Rather than showing the cardholder’s correct information in the lower-right corner, the misprinted Michigan IDs displayed a stock image of a Black man along with a fictitious date of birth.
“The misprinted information is generic and is not the information of another resident,” state officials said, emphasizing that no other resident’s personal details were printed on the cards.
Michigan resident Lanita Nelson was among those who noticed the strange mistake after receiving her enhanced driver’s license, a state-issued credential that can also be used for certain land and sea border crossings into the United States.
“I kept looking and I was like, ‘That’s a man in the bottom corner,’” Nelson told CBS Detroit. “And I keep looking, and he’s smiling. I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’”
When she examined the corner more closely, Nelson realized the identifying details printed there did not match her own.
“There is a whole black man’s face down on the bottom right of my license with a fake birthday; January 12, ’67,” Nelson said.
“I’m like, ‘No, this doesn’t apply to me. This can’t be right.’ I did a Google search and said, ‘Who is this man on my enhanced license?’” she added.
Nelson soon discovered that other Michigan residents had received licenses bearing the same stranger’s face.
“I received it and the photo/birthdate on the bottom looked like Kevin Hart,” someone wrote on Facebook.
The photo was not another customer’s, but rather a stock image typically used as an example of what an enhanced license looks like.
The error left Nelson wondering whether she could safely use the license if she were pulled over.
“If I show this to the police, and I mess around and get pulled over, they are going to try to take me to jail. So I have to figure this out,” she said.
The Michigan Department of State said corrected cards have already been mailed to everyone who received a misprinted license or ID.
Affected residents do not need to report the mistake or request a replacement.
Until they receive their corrected cards, residents can print a temporary license or ID online or visit a Secretary of State branch office.
Anyone whose previous license or ID has not expired can continue using it for travel, according to the state.
Michigan isn’t the only state to have botched driver’s licenses in recent months.
In January, the California DMV said an estimated 325,000 residents would have to replace their REAL ID driver’s licenses after a software error.
In a far more troubling case, the FBI said last week it was investigating a report that tens of millions of driver’s licenses belonging to people in the US and Canada were being sold on the dark web.
