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TALLAHASSEE - The state will start issuing an upgraded driver's license next year. But it will be years after that before all 15-million people licensed to drive in Florida get the new version.
Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a five-year contract with Digimarc ID Systems to provide the new equipment and licenses.
If renewed for a second five-year period, the contract would be worth $100-million.
Issuance of the licenses will begin early next year, said Fred Dickinson, executive director of the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
But with the two renewals that safe drivers can get, it could be 2018 before every driver has the new license, Dickinson said.
The new design and security features have been in the works for two years. The new licenses have "ghost" images underneath other data that make them very difficult to duplicate, Dickinson said.
"We have layers and layers of security," he said.
Examining a sample of the new license, Bush said it would be hard for a teenager to produce a fake driver's license to buy beer. "There ain't no way," he said.