New technology led to ID theft arrest

Two weeks ago, 47-year-old David Grice of Illinois was arrested in Fountain County, and it now turns out that the new facial recognition technology in use for drivers' license pictures led to the arrest.

At a conference on identity theft and fraud Tuesday in Indianapolis, BMV commissioner Andy Miller said that after Grice obtained six different IDs, the agency alerted its branches and within 48 hours he was caught while applying for a seventh at the Crawfordsville license branch.

On February 4th, Grice got an ID at Crawfordsville as "David Grice".

He went back on on the 28th as "Thomas Wascher."

Then he stopped at the West Lafayette branch a month later as "Walter Johnson."

In Terre Haute, he got an ID as "Tony Placht."

In Williamsport, he was "Kevin Fourez."

And he was back in Terre Haute as "Ryan Brown."

The Fountain County sheriff said at the time of the arrest that Grice had gathered the information for these false identities from job applicants to a body shop business Grice had tried to open. The sheriff said that Grice used the identities to open checking accounts at multiple banks and write checks to himself under different names.

( Read the original story on the arrest. )

BMV Deputy Communications Director Graig Lubsen said the case is one of the more extreme examples of why the technology can come in handy.

Each new photo taken at a license branch is compared to the 5,500,000 already on file and the system presents about seven cases a day for further investigation by bureau employees.

While a lot of people have heard you can't smile for your picture, Lubsen says the rule is that you can smile as long as you keep your lips together. Other new requirements meant to aid the facial recognition software include keeping your head upright (not tilted), not wearing eyeglasses in the photo, not  wearing head coverings, and keeping your hair from obscuring your forehead, eyebrows, eyes, or ears.