Getting REAL ID where I live is a major PITA, especially for younger drivers. It's a bit easier for us old-school folks who still get paper bank statements and such., though the older you are, the more likely you are not to have a certified birth certificate. You have to appear in person, and you have to bring a LOT of paper documents.
Proof of citizenship and Social Security number isn't that difficult; you need a passport, or a govt. birth certificate and either
your SSN original card or a W2 issued within the previous 12 months. The harder part is residence. You have to show 2 proofs of current residence: One can be a recently issued dated document from an official institution such as a bank or school, and if it was received in the mail it has to have the name and address on the envelope itself with the postmark; no window envelopes. The second has to be from a government agency, such as a court summons, selective service card (if you're male), a voter registration or driver license renewal REMINDER postcard, etc., and it has to be postmarked within the past 6 months. Lots of younger folks have to go do something deliberate to get such mail sent to them in paper form, but the digital documents they would normally receive do not count -- it has to have been processed and received via the US Mail.
When DD was about ready to get her first license I asked and was told that they recommend bringing at least 6 of the suggested types of document with you to the DMV, and bringing 8 is recommended, though only 4 are technically needed. The problem is that the system is set up with "groups" of available options, and people get confused by that. You need one each from 4 possible groups, and people have a tendency to assume that certain things, such as a passport, can count in more than one group if it's listed in both. Nope, doesn't work that way, each item can only count once. So, to get it to work, you need to haul in more than you really need so that there are alternative options, and let the clerk go through the pile to find enough items that correctly count. I've never seen anyone walk up with 4 items and get them all accepted as proof -- something always seems to get rejected for some reason, so if you don't double-up, what ends up happening is that the clerk tells you that you don't have enough approved documents for REAL ID, so the choice is to come back another time when you have them all, or just get the basic ID. Many people are so tired of waiting in long lines by the time they get to the counter that making a second trip seems like too much, so they just accept the basic version.
TSA (and ICE) will let me through with my trusty blue valid US Passport, though -- nothing else is necessary. A US passport is more expensive to get than a state REAL ID driving license for me, but doesn't require nearly as many documents to obtain. It's ironic. (FWIW, my entire family does have REAL ID licenses, but they were a pain to obtain.)
PS: My state was one of the last REAL ID holdouts, and the reason had nothing to do with citizens being worried about privacy; it was the STATE that was worried about privacy -- they didn't want to combine both citizenship information and residence information into the same database, lest the Feds get any invasive ideas.
