Iowans should leave their smiles at home when renewing their driver's license

Your new driver's license photo look may be deadpan, but at least you know it's you.

Iowans getting or renewing their licenses have been asked to remove eyeglasses and refrain from smiling for the past year to help the Iowa Department of Transportation's facial recognition software prevent identity theft, said IDOT spokeswoman Dena Gray-Fisher.

“It's for fraud detection, and it's being used effectively,” Gray-Fisher said Wednesday.

Staff at driver's license stations have been instructed to go for the American Gothic look (sans spectacles) because it removes distractions for the software, installed last winter to detect anyone trying to get a license with another person's name. The software compares the applicant's face to those already in the database.

“Every night, the software runs against what's in database,” said Gray-Fisher. “If there's anything suspicious, our investigators check into it.”

Gray-Fisher didn't have numbers, but she said matches are detected “frequently,” and “they investigate a number of cases every day.”

The database isn't shared with any other agency, Gray-Fisher said. A driver's need for corrective lenses is noted on the license's data strip, so police may match the face on the license with a driver's.