mmargel

Quick post for a friend. He flys home tomorrow from FL. His driver's license expired 3 days ago. Will TSA give him trouble? ( do they even look at the expiration date? ) He has no other form of gov't ID with him. Need he try to over night his passport to be on the safe side? Anyone have any experience?

Thanks!

avidflyer

It is not but he will be fine. They will probably not look at the date (though I have had some TSA do that) but regardless you do not need a photo ID to get through security. If you do not have one, you will need to go through secondary screening where they will ask a bunch of questions and maybe even make some phone calls but as long as you cooperate with secondary screening and you can prove who you are through other means, they will let him fly.

He should get there extra early just in case he does have to do secondary screening.






Lost ID? Can you still fly?


Like most travelers, you must have wondered what you would do if you lost your IDs’ while traveling by air?

No panic necessary, says the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which recently started a new system they claim will make it easier to board your plane.

You can board your flight without ID, as long as TSA officials can verify your identity.

"Establishing identification is as important as having a passenger go through a metal detector,” said spokesman Christopher White.

In the past, travelers without ID had to undergo regular screening, a whole-body pat-down and a full luggage check before they were allowed to board their flights. But the TSA’s policy changed last month to focus on identity verification, according to Mr White, who claimed the move increases public safety.

"If you're a bad guy, the last thing you want is to have your name called into a government operations center, be interviewed by the police and have a behavior-detection officer come chat with you" he said.

He said it takes an average of six minutes to verify identity.

If you lose your ID, you should arrive at the security checkpoint early, security officials say. Explain the situation to the officer at the document-checking station. You'll be asked to fill out a form including your full name and address, which officials will check against publicly available databases. If necessary, local police and TSA behavior-detection officers will interview you, and you might have to undergo additional screening. But at least you can still get on a plane without ID.

GUWonder

If the government got out of the voodoo "security" business of checking IDs to fly in or from the US, this concern wouldn't arise in relation to flying as a passenger except when the airline wants to make a stink of it. [ID checks don't provide security from weapons, explosives or incendiaries -- contraband items the TSA routinely misses while being distracted by the stupid x-ray shoe carnival, the strip search machine peepshow and ID checks; and even in conjunction with government blacklists they are a cheap joke to circumvent for anyone with at least some means and average mental acumen.]

A person's identity does not expire just because some piece of government ID does, and it's likely that most people in such situations will be able to fly even without ID or unexpired ID.

mmargel

Thanks. I have passed this along.

Darien Red Sox

At some airports you will be sent to a back office to talk to a TSA supervisor for additional screening and verification of who you are.

iansr

Wasn't there a rule about an expired id card or drivers license being okay for a year after expiration?

MachOne

At JFK, TSA spotted Mrs. MachOne's expired license. Only thing said was that is was expired and they let her pass.

MO

Denolloyd

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

Expired ID = no ID. obviously some let an expired ID pass.

CarmenOM

I had this problem a couple of years ago, when I failed to notice that my license had expired a couple of days before a flight. I was sent from the elite security line entrance back to the ticket counter, where I received a new BP with SSSS on it. That signaled the security agents to do a more thorough screening --- body pat down, open luggage, etc. Nobody was nasty about it; that was just the procedure for that situation. On my return flight I allowed extra time for the extra screening. It sounds like the regulations may have eased up recently.

The more serious consequence of my lapsed license was that I had to cancel a rental car reservation.

HWGeeks

at T2 I saw a lady with an expired ID they gave her a hard time at first but she got through.

fromYXU

Same thing happened to my son. Just had to go through more security scrutiny.

DouglasBoyd

This is the reason I always travel within the U.S. with a valid passport. Texas Duck

fti

With all due respect, this is a post for the Travel & Security forum

Passports expire just like drivers licenses do, just not as often, so the potential problem could still exist

RobertS975

Yup, an expired ID is good for TSA purposes up to one year!