THEREFORE I AM: Hold the "cheese" on your driver's license

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June 8, 2009

By David Spates / davespates@tds.net The Crossville Chronicle Mon Jun 08, 2009, 01:36 PM CDT

The government wants to wipe that goofy grin off your face. Stay in line, do what you're told, and —— above all — no smiling allowed. That's fine by me. My driver's license photos always look horrible no matter what facial expression I have, and smiling is rarely any improvement.

Four states are demanding that people not smile in their driver's license photos. You can still smile in the Volunteer State, but I say it won't be long until smiling will be a no-no here as well.

I read about this recently in USA Today, and it made me think about all of the problems in the world that I didn't even realize WERE problems. Who would have thought that smiling in driver's license photos is an issue? Here's why: Apparently more and more states are using high-tech software that analyzes driver's license photos in an effort to stop people from assuming another driver's identity. The trouble is that the software has trouble recognizing faces when people smile. "Neutral facial expressions" are OK, but smiles are no good. The computer hates to see you smile — I guess it's jealous of the fun you're having at the DMV.

Fake IDs are a big problem, and we're not just talking about underage college students trying to get into bars on quarter beer night. That's a minor problem compared to cases in which people steal another person's identity to create a driver's license and then use that fake ID to illegally get state services, obtain credit cards or to carry out any number of untold dastardly deeds. It's also a national security issue. Think about how often you show someone your driver's license during the course of a month. Your driver's license is the cornerstone of your identity.

Four states have passed "no smiling" rules already — Arkansas, Indiana, Nevada and Virginia — and you can bet that more states will follow. Officials using the software in Illinois have stopped 6,000 people from getting fraudulent driver's licenses since 1999. It works.

The software can tolerate a slight grin — you don't have to look like you just buried your dog — but big toothy grins are out. You won't hear anyone at the DMV saying "cheeeeeese!"

That's fine by me. I've never been good at producing on-command smiles. I always look like I'm faking it. I try to paste on a good smile, honest I do. It doesn't work. I think I lack the facial muscles to create good on-command smiles. My natural, free-formed smiles are fine. The best photos of me are the ones in which I have no idea that anyone's taking a picture. My "cheese" smile stinks.

Sadly for my progeny, the genetic smile didn't fall far from the tree. (That's assuming smiles somehow fall and that they inexplicably grow on trees. Apparently I also lack the ability to alter cliches into effective analogies. I'm not sure if that's a genetic trait or not.) Neither one of my children has good "cheese" smiles. They get that from me. My wife has a good "cheese" smile, so you can blame me for the kids' school pictures that come home and never get framed.

Last year I took Anna to a father-daughter dance that her Girl Scout troop was hosting. In addition to grooving to Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana songs, we also had a commemorative photo taken of us sporting our after-6 duds. One "cheese," two bad smiles, no waiting — if anyone ever needs photographic evidence that Anna is my daughter, he has it with that picture. We both look as though we were preparing to have dental X-rays taken. My son's, Phil's, "cheese" smile isn't any better. He always looks as though he's recovering from a brain-freeze ice cream headache.

Kids, I'm sorry about that. Try to smile as naturally as possible. I hope that you've inherited some compensatory genetic traits from the old man (such as the ability to use "compensatory" in a sentence), because our "cheese" won't cut it.

Just try not to cut it down at the DMV. They don't go in for that sort of thing anymore.

David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@tds.net.

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