Remarks for bill 26-0194

In 2016, the Baltimore City Council passed 16-0652 creating the Municipal Identification Card program, providing every resident who needs one a Municipal Identification Card.  

In 2021, we held a hearing in Chair McCray’s Public Health committee last term to get an update as to the status of the implementation of this bill.  This resolution and the hearing pushed the administration to finally get started on implementing the Municipal ID Card program. 

Since then, MOCFS and BCIT have been doing research on best practices, and the data equity team is working on implementation.  This bill is the result of their findings, that some adjustments are needed to the 2016 legislation to ensure the Municipal ID program is the best program in the nation.

Whereas the purpose for establishing the Municipal Identification Card program is to allow for residents who do not have driver’s licenses, school ID’s or other forms of common identification to have a clear identification card for various purposes, including making sure that all residents can participate in all that Baltimore has to offer. This may apply to people experiencing homelessness, immigrants, young adults, our LGBTQ community, and anyone needing a Baltimore City ID.

The program does not save a user’s data, there is no data stored at BCIT.  The program simply allows for the data equity team to look at documents for verification. 

Changes to the law that are in this bill include:

-Gender affirming - the 2016 law removed gender from the ID card. My changes make sure that a person’s gender preference is included.

-Changes some terms we no longer use - such as Older Adults instead of Senior Citizens.

-Allowing BCIT or its successor to create the program with the parameters in the bill. The current bill outlines several documents that could be used for proof of residency and identification, and this way BCIT can be flexible with the documents they want to accept, and will publish those requirements.

-Calling this the Baltimore City ID Card

I’m really excited about the progress here, and look forward to working with my colleagues and the administration on passage of this bill, and the creation of the Baltimore City ID program.