Last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced that they will offer nearly $80 million in grant funding to help states improve the security of state-issued driver’s licenses and identification documents, as part of the new REAL ID requirements. Every state that requested funding for Fiscal Year 2008 will receive a portion of the grant funding.

The funding will help support projects such as improving the security of licenses, upgrading the security of facilities and updating document imaging and storing capacities. In addition, the funding will provide support for the development and testing of a verification hub that will let states send query requests to federal and non-federal institutions that issue identification documents to verify applicant source documents.