ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- An age-verification bar code in new driver's licenses in New York is tripping up scanners designed to catch fake IDs, reported the Associated Press. Convenience store owners said a scanner supplied to 16,000 retailers is unable to read the new bar code design to verify the ages of customers trying to buy alcohol, cigarettes and lottery tickets.
The higher-security driver's licenses issued since mid-September can be used instead of a passport to cross into Canada.
While clerks can still check a date of birth by looking at the license, they are turning away some [image-nocss] younger-looking customers out of fear of breaking the law by selling restricted products to minors using fake IDs.
"Obviously it puts us in a bad situation; they're going to come in and say…it's good…but we can't read it, we can't be sure you don't look old enough, we're sorry," Mobil station owner Art Hayes told WSYT-TV. "We would rather lose the sale than lose our license and be fined."
The State Lottery Department said it will be at least January before they will be able to update the software in these machines so the stores can read the new enhanced driver's licenses.
"It'd be nice to know that ahead of time because you have to scurry to get everybody in compliance because we're subject to some pretty serious fines and license suspension, revocations if we don't follow the law," Ron Rowland of Nice N Easy told the news outlet.
A state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) spokesperson said about 5,000 of the new enhanced driver's licenses have been issued since they were first made available September 16.
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