Does Maryland (population 6.2 million) have a good reason for issuing drivers licenses with ID that are one letter and *twelve* digits, when California (population 39.5 million) finds one letter and seven digits to be quite sufficient?
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NJ is worse.
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Not only is it more characters (15), it is in fact entirely derivable from your name, DOB, gender, and eye color. Meaning, it's not necessarily unique.
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Replying to @haroldliss @khuey_
Oh, apparently Maryland numbers are similar (except skip gender and eye color): highprogrammer.com/alan/numb… ... which I can confirm is accurate for my new Maryland DL.

Sep 16, 2021 · 11:50 PM UTC

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Replying to @davidbaron @haroldliss @khuey_
That said, a Maryland DL has *two* other numbers on it -- a 9-digit number next to the photo on the front, and a 10-digit number below (and hopefully matching) the barcode on the back. Maybe one of those is unique?
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Turn out Maryland fixed this recently (since the tweet I'm replying to): mva.maryland.gov/Documents/2…
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