IN PRIVACEY THE COMPUTER AGE; SMART CARDS: STATE SHOULD NOT FORCE TECHNOLOGY ON ANYONE, LEAVITT SAYS; LEAVITT: CARDS OUGHT TO BE VOLUNTARY Dan Harrie The Salt Lake Tribune. Salt Lake City, Utah: April 25, 1997. pg.A.1. Copyright The Salt Lake Tribune April 25, 1997 Gov. Mike Leavitt is a big fan of advanced technology, but says no Utahn should be forced to trade in her or his driver license for a microchip embedded ``smart card.'' ``If you don't want to have one, you shouldn't have to have one,'' says Leavitt, who carries a prototype smart card in his wallet. ``I don't think anyone should be forced to have one. But that shouldn't stop us from making it available to other people,'' Leavitt told reporters after taping of his monthly KUED-TV news conference Thursday. He suggested an opt-out provision by which those with concerns could continue using the oldstyle licenses. Smart cards can carry 100 times as much information as the magnetic strips used on bank cards. In addition to driver-license data, the holder could opt to have credit-card, checking-account, health-insurance and other information added. The proposal for switching driver licenses to a card that can store large amounts of electronic information has ignited frenzied opposition from those fearing its privacy-invading potential. ``These are not illogical concerns,'' Leavitt said. ``This has become a symbol of those {privacy} issues.'' Smart-card controversy has even forged a rare, if not unprecedented, alliance of the ultraconservative Utah Eagle Forum and the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah. The politically polar groups put aside differences to successfully combat a bill during the 1997 Legislature that would have mandated that all motorists carry smart cards. And they continue to fight the push to convert driver Utah's license to the proposed high-tech format. ``There are those who have said it has the potential of turning into a national ID card, and we wouldn't want to have anything like that,'' said Utah Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka. ``Why is government getting into the business of credit cards and banking cards and any other cards besides driver licenses?'' Ruzicka posed. ``That's the very question I keep asking and I keep getting different answers.''
Ruzicka said Leavitt's suggestion of a voluntary switch to smart cards is ``certainly better than forcing everybody to have one.'' But she still opposes the change as leading, inevitably, to a universal mandate. As recently as a week ago, the head of the company proposing to manufacture the smart cards under contract with the state of Utah said the driver-license switch must be all or nothing. It would not be economically feasible to make the new smart licenses voluntary, said James Biorge. ``I don't believe that,'' Leavitt said, adding he believes few enough people would opt out of the program to...