Over 8,000 Michigan residents receive new driver’s licenses with the same stranger’s face and fake birthday

Thousands of Michigan residents who recently applied for or renewed their driver’s licenses or state ID cards encountered a bizarre surprise in their mailboxes. It turns out that approximately 8,200 cards recently produced contained a significant printing error. 

As reported by the NY Post, instead of displaying the correct personal details for the cardholders, these documents featured a stock photo of a man in the lower right corner, accompanied by a completely incorrect date of birth. This glitch reportedly originated from a production error by the state’s vendor, Idemia.

The situation became apparent when residents began noticing the discrepancies on their official documents. Lanita Nelson, a Michigan resident who received one of the faulty cards, shared her confusion regarding the unexpected visitor on her identification. 

She was worried she could get in trouble

“I kept looking and I was like, ‘That’s a man in the bottom corner,’” Nelson told CBS Detroit. “And I keep looking, and he’s smiling. I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’” Upon inspecting the card further, she realized the information provided in that section was entirely disconnected from her own identity. 

“There is a whole black man’s face down on the bottom right of my license with a fake birthday; January 12, ’67,” Nelson said. She noted that she felt compelled to research the image to understand why it was there. “I’m like, ‘No, this doesn’t apply to me. This can’t be right.’ I did a Google search and said, ‘Who is this man on my enhanced license?’” she added.

It appears that Nelson was not the only one baffled by the inclusion of this mystery individual. Other residents also shared their own experiences with the misprinted documents, with one user noting, “I received it and the photo/birthdate on the bottom looked like Kevin Hart.” 

State officials have since clarified that the image is not a photo of another resident or a customer, but rather a generic stock image that is typically used as a placeholder to demonstrate what an enhanced license is supposed to look like. The Michigan Secretary of State’s Office confirmed that the misprinted information is entirely generic and does not belong to any other actual person.

Lanita Nelson expressed worry about the potential for misunderstandings during routine interactions with law enforcement. “If I show this to the police, and I mess around and get pulled over, they are going to try to take me to jail. So I have to figure this out,” she said.

Fortunately, the Michigan Department of State has taken steps to resolve the issue for all 8,200 impacted individuals. Corrected cards have already been printed and mailed out to everyone who received a document containing the error. The state has explicitly stated that affected residents do not need to take any action, such as reporting the mistake or requesting a replacement, because the new, accurate cards are already on their way.