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I have dealt with the RMV bureaucracy, and now have a paper temporary ID while I wait for the plastic card to arrive in the mail ("about ten days"). The clerk looked at, and then kept, my previous ID, with the Somerville address; fortunately, I did the COA when we moved from Arlington to Somerville online, so I have that card and put it in my wallet when I got home.
The whole thing took longer than I expected, partly because the MBTA website had actively confusing directions, so I spent an annoying amount of time wandering around Watertown Square before I found the correct bus stop, long enough that I decided to stop for lunch before getting on the bus. (It didn't help that both ends of the 70 bus route are "Central Square," one in Cambridge and the other in Waltham.)
Once at the MBTA, it was mostly tedious: they check paperwork first, and hand out numbers like "S-64" or "M-45," and then announce "now serving M-50 at window 11." There are enough lines, moving fast enough, to produce frequent announcements, which is good but made it hard to read while I waited.
When I got to the counter, the clerk suggested I wait until November, because "there's no rush" and it would be cheaper. Getting a new ID card because of a change of address (with or without "real ID") costs $25, as do renewals without moving (or, I think, getting a new "real ID" card without moving), but a renewal with change of address costs $25, not $50. My ID expires on my birthday in 2020, about 15 months from now, and a COA less than a year before the expiration date would count as a renewal, which this doesn't. I told him I still wanted to do it, which was as much because of the amount of time I'd already put in as because I want to have this before I renew my passport.
After my previous post, thinking about the amount of paperwork they're demanding for this, I realized something odd: it looks as though someone could get a "real ID" using the name and paperwork of a family member or housemate. The RMV will accept the combination of an official birth certificate, social security card, utility bill, and W-2 form, all of which someone might have at home where a friend, relative, or even burglar could find them. However, they won't accept a current US passport (which is proof of both identity and "right of residence" in the US), plus a utility bill and credit card statement, even though they can and did check online that the social security number I gave them goes with my name.
Because it's not about protecting individuals from identity theft, it's about more about making it harder for people to get ID--the new federally-imposed requirement for two different kinds of proof of address makes that pretty clear.
The whole thing took longer than I expected, partly because the MBTA website had actively confusing directions, so I spent an annoying amount of time wandering around Watertown Square before I found the correct bus stop, long enough that I decided to stop for lunch before getting on the bus. (It didn't help that both ends of the 70 bus route are "Central Square," one in Cambridge and the other in Waltham.)
Once at the MBTA, it was mostly tedious: they check paperwork first, and hand out numbers like "S-64" or "M-45," and then announce "now serving M-50 at window 11." There are enough lines, moving fast enough, to produce frequent announcements, which is good but made it hard to read while I waited.
When I got to the counter, the clerk suggested I wait until November, because "there's no rush" and it would be cheaper. Getting a new ID card because of a change of address (with or without "real ID") costs $25, as do renewals without moving (or, I think, getting a new "real ID" card without moving), but a renewal with change of address costs $25, not $50. My ID expires on my birthday in 2020, about 15 months from now, and a COA less than a year before the expiration date would count as a renewal, which this doesn't. I told him I still wanted to do it, which was as much because of the amount of time I'd already put in as because I want to have this before I renew my passport.
After my previous post, thinking about the amount of paperwork they're demanding for this, I realized something odd: it looks as though someone could get a "real ID" using the name and paperwork of a family member or housemate. The RMV will accept the combination of an official birth certificate, social security card, utility bill, and W-2 form, all of which someone might have at home where a friend, relative, or even burglar could find them. However, they won't accept a current US passport (which is proof of both identity and "right of residence" in the US), plus a utility bill and credit card statement, even though they can and did check online that the social security number I gave them goes with my name.
Because it's not about protecting individuals from identity theft, it's about more about making it harder for people to get ID--the new federally-imposed requirement for two different kinds of proof of address makes that pretty clear.
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