The Real ID Act passed by the U.S. Congress will require that states IT leaders find ways to ensure that drivers licenses are more trustworthy and technology-based. The main provisions of the bill require that states by 2008 verify data with the federal government and other states before issuing drivers licenses. The cards also have to have specific types of data and must be machine-readable. The Real ID Act is meant to prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining drivers licenses, but its provisions for implementation of technical provisions are fuzzy. The Homeland Security secretary, working with the Transportation secretary, has to develop regulations that states will follow. Birth certificate information, Social Security numbers, and other data on drivers licenses will have to be sharable. The Act requires that information be collected without specification of controls over the use of the data. There is currently sharing among 39 states via electronic data interchange (EDI) for access to a Social Security database, but other verifications will be more difficult. A small federally funded pilot that uses the straightforward Electronic Verification of Vital Events Web interface has demonstrated, says an expert, that verification of such records is not technically difficult. The National Conference of State Legislatures has estimated a cost as high as $750 million to implement measures required by the Real ID Act. In Summer 2005, the federal government will experiment with radio frequency identification (RFID) in passports and visas of some foreign nationals entering the U.S. As machine-readable IDs are widely implemented, they could be used in new ways by the private sector and help in verification of identities before IDs are issued.