Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias is pictured in a file photo. (Andrew Adams / Capitol News Illinois)

Illinois driver’s license facilities are up and running again after a Thursday morning outage caused by what Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said in a social media post was a “nationwide network outage.”

The system was restored at 11:30 a.m., according to Max Walczyk, a spokesman for Giannoulias.   

The cause was an outage in the “national network that connects driver’s license facilities,” a network run by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. That outage resulted in the system having to shut down across the country.

“As a result of the outage, DMVs were unable to access a key database search tool that [allows] them to verify information,” Walczyk said in the email statement. “The system is used by states to verify a driver’s eligibility for a license and for other critical functions.”

Walczyk said the outage exclusively impacted transactions associated with driver’s licenses.

“Vehicle registration services and on-site driving tests were not affected,” he said.

The Illinois Secretary of State’s office had posted about the difficulties at 10:10 a.m. this morning on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Walczyk said residents who had driver’s license appointments for Thursday morning were directly notified, and their appointments rescheduled.

Illinois in September moved to a mostly online-only appointment system for driver’s license renewals, though the Loop site in Chicago is available for walk-ups.

After complaints that residents trying to make appointments couldn’t because they were already booked, Giannoulias in January debuted changes to make it easier.

In July, Illinois increased the fee for a new car title by $10, bringing the total cost to $165. The increase is to be used to help pay for an IT infrastructure upgrade.

The secretary of state’s office previously said the increase “won’t come close” to raising the $200 million needed to overhaul the “archaic” system “to better protect personal information, increase cybersecurity and prevent outages … but is a decision the GA (General Assembly) made to help generate more for modernization.”

Illinois has also increasingly been moving to an online appointment system for driver’s license renewals, road tests and other services.

Contact Amanda Vinicky: @AmandaVinicky | [email protected]