Talk about an identity crisis.
Thousands of Michigan residents discovered their newly issued enhanced driver’s licenses and state ID cards bizarrely featured a stranger’s face when they opened their mail this week.
Approximately 8,200 cards created on August 26 were misprinted because of an error by the state’s vendor, Idemia, according to the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office on Sept. 5.
Instead of the cardholder’s information, the lower-right corner displayed a stock photo of a black man alongside a fake date of birth.
“The misprinted information is generic and is not the information of another resident,” state officials clarified.
Michigan resident Lanita Nelson spotted the bizarre mix-up after receiving her enhanced driver’s license, a state-issued ID that can also be used to cross certain US borders by land or sea.
“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?’”
Then she took a closer look at the corner and realized her personal details were all wrong.
“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.
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