Passport verification at Illinois facilities hit with temporary outage

CHICAGO - U.S. passport verification at Illinois facilities was unavailable briefly on Wednesday due to a nationwide outage, state officials announced.

What we know:

Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias alerted residents of the outage around 9:30 a.m.

The passport verification outage is not impacting airports. 

Around 11 a.m., Secretary of State officials released the following statement, saying service had been restored:

"We activated a process that we put in place to enable us to process U.S. passports and immigration documents from other countries at our DMV facilities. We are not experiencing any delays at our DMVs as a result," the statement read.

What we don't know:

It was not immediately clear what caused the outage.

What you can do:

Prior to service being restored, Giannoulias advised those needing to go to the DMV to call ahead because services and hours may be impacted.

Real ID enforcement begins at Chicago airports

The TSA reported a smooth rollout of Real ID enforcement at O’Hare Airport, with most travelers arriving prepared with the required documentation.

Big picture view:

Recently, there have been long lines at DMVs across Illinois as residents try to obtain their REAL IDs. 

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) started enforcing the requirement for REAL IDs on May 7.

Travelers flying without a REAL ID can use their passport, but even without that there are still alternatives to the new requirement, though they just might add delays to your trip and aren't guaranteed to work.

Passengers will be required to fill out  TSA Form 415, also known as a Certification of Identity form, and if the TSA officials are able to confirm the details given to them, passengers will be allowed to go through the security checkpoint and board their flight. Passengers who go this route may be subject to additional pat-downs, questioning or other extra security screening.