To crackdown on underage drinking – an issue that has been at the forefront for years in Boston – Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles officials are enforcing stricter penalties on fake ID users and those using an ID other than their own.

A person caught using a fake ID now automatically faces a six-month suspension of his or her own Massachusetts license, according to the registrar.

Although students from all over the country attend school in Boston, the Massachusetts law applies to everyone, Allston-Brighton Police Captain William Evans said.

Both Evans and Frederick Mahony of the Alcohol Beverages Control Commission said they think the threat of losing a driver’s license is the most efficient measure to keep people from using counterfeit IDs.

“With the spring and warmer weather approaching, kids want and need to have their cars,” Mahony said.

Using a fake ID “needs to be taken seriously,” Anne Collins, registrar for the MRMV said. “It’s a new day. Youthful indiscretion will not be tolerated any longer. Falsifying a Massachusetts license will have consequences.”

The harsher penalties now do not only apply to the youngster who’s trying to get away with using a friend’s license to pass door staff at a bar or club, or to purchase alcohol at a liquor store. If there is evidence that a person allowed somebody else to use their own license, that person’s license, not just the impersonator caught with it, is in danger, according to the registrar.

Because access to buying false identification has become available to anyone with the Internet – 7.4 million sites popped up under a Google search of “fake IDs” – and with the new computer technology teenagers have available at home, the Registry was forced to take more substantial measures to limit the use of fake IDs.

“In 2004, the [Massachusetts] license was redesigned to make it more secure,” Collins said. The new, sophisticated, security design includes features that only appear if scanned or looked at under a black light, she said.

“As technology gets better, sure, it’s a bigger challenge for us,” she said of making Massachusetts IDs harder to duplicate.

Local police departments often turn fakes they confiscate over to the Registry, which turns them over to the Massachusetts State Police for investigation, she said.

Before the 2005 summer, the penalty for having a fake ID was a possible driver’s license suspension for up to six months, but since the summer, the RMV has enforced the full suspension term of six months for every offender, according to RMV spokesman Rob Creedon.

Since the stricter penalty has taken effect, Creedon said it is difficult to tell if fake ID use has decreased, but RMV officials believe increasing the punishment is an effective measure.

“Fake IDs have been a common problem for a long time, and it’s time to start cracking down,” he said.

But each circumstance is dealt with on a case-by-case basis, said Mahony, a group that supervises the selling of alcoholic beverages and works closely with the Boston Police Department and the RMV to prevent the use of fake IDs.

Evans said the BPD combats the use of fake IDs through several methods including implementing a program called “cops ‘n shops” to deter selling alcohol to underage customers and encouraging alcohol sellers to take advantage of the classes that help them accurately identify legitimate IDs and recognize fake ones.

Nick Blakey, a salesman at Bauer Wines and Spirits on Newbury Street, said that employees are conscious of the wide use of fake IDs.

“It is a major concern, but because of our location we don’t deal with it as much as other stores may,” he said.

Blakey added that Bauer Wines uses an ID book to show what each real license looks like with the holograms to prevent the usage of fake IDs.