Court Blocks High-Security Driver’s Licenses

The state Department of Motor Vehicles has been told by an appellate court that it cannot proceed with a $24-million program to start issuing new high-security driver’s licenses.

As a result, the department is preparing a contingency plan that may involve scrapping the controversial contract and issuing a new call for bids on the project, a spokesman said Wednesday.

California motorists will continue to be issued the same licenses they have been using for years without the new high-tech security features designed to prevent counterfeiting and other abuses.

On Tuesday, the state 3rd District Court of Appeal ruled that the DMV cannot implement the $24-million contract with Polaroid Corp. to produce and issue the new licenses. Implementation was due to start last month.

The DMV had asked the appellate court to allow the project to go ahead while it fought a battle in Superior Court with an unsuccessful bidder, NBS Imaging Systems. NBS had charged that the contract was illegal because a Polaroid subcontractor had a conflict of interest, an allegation upheld by a Superior Court judge.

Evan Nossoff, a DMV spokesman, said Wednesday that the department has not decided whether to fight further in court to implement the Polaroid contact. But he said the department has alerted potential driver’s license vendors that it may seek to rebid the project later this year.

“At this time, we have not made a decision to drop our legal case. What we have made is a decision to pursue a parallel [track] so that we can rebid the contract quickly if that proves necessary,” he said.