Prior to 2005, each state designed its own driver's license according to its own standards. In 2005, the U.S. Congress passed a controversial bill known as the REAL ID Act, which established uniform standards for the design and content of state drivers' licenses and delegated authority to the Department of Homeland Security to implement and regulate compliance with the Act. One of the more-controversial aspects of the Act was that it requires all the underlying state databases be linked into a single national database.[citation needed]