Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Departments of Motor Vehicles in states around the country are taking drivers' personal information and selling it to thousands of businesses, including private investigators who spy on people for a profit, Motherboard has learned. DMVs sell the data for an array of approved purposes, such as to insurance or tow companies, but some of them have sold to more nefarious businesses as well. Multiple states have made tens of millions of dollars a year selling data.
Motherboard has obtained hundreds of pages of documents from DMVs through public records requests that lay out the practice. Members of the public may not be aware that when they provide their name, address, and in some cases other personal information to the DMV for the purposes of getting a driver's license or registering a vehicle, the DMV often then turns around and offers that information for sale.
Many of the private investigators that DMVs have sold data to explicitly advertise that they will surveil spouses to see if they're cheating.
"You need to learn what they’ve been doing, when they’ve been doing it, who they’ve been doing it with and how long it has been going on. You need to see proof with your own eyes," reads the website of Integrity Investigations, one private investigator firm that buys data from DMVs.
"Under this MOU [memorandum of understanding], the Requesting Party will be provided, via remote electronic means, information pertaining to driver licenses and vehicles, including personal information authorized to be released," one agreement between a DMV and its clients reads.
Multiple DMVs stressed to Motherboard that they do not sell the photographs from citizens' driver licenses or social security numbers.
Some of the data access is done in bulk, while other arrangements allow a company to lookup specific individuals, according to the documents. Contracts can roll for months at a time, and records can cost as little as $0.01 each, the documents add.
“The selling of personally identifying information to third parties is broadly a privacy issue for all and specifically a safety issue for survivors of abuse, including domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and trafficking," Erica Olsen, director of Safety Net at the National Network to End Domestic Violence, told Motherboard in an email. "For survivors, their safety may depend on their ability to keep this type of information private."
The sale of this data to licensed private investigators is perfectly legal, due to the Driver's Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), a law written in the '90s before privacy became the cultural focus that it is today, but which critics believe should be changed. The process of becoming a licensed private investigator varies from state to state, and can be strict, according to multiple sources close to the industry. Some states, however, allow licensing to be granted on a local level or investigators to operate without a license.
The DPPA was created in 1994 after a private investigator, hired by a stalker, obtained the address of actress Rebecca Schaeffer from a DMV. The stalker went on to murder Schaeffer. The purpose of the law was to restrict access to DMV data, but it included a wide range of exemptions, including for the sale to private investigators.
"The DPPA is one of several federal laws that should now be updated," Marc Rotenberg, president and executive director of privacy activism group EPIC, wrote in an email. "I would certainly reduce the number of loopholes," he added, referring to how the law might be changed.
[...] He added that if the DMV data has been abused by private investigators, "Congress should take a close look at the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, and, if necessary, close loopholes that are being abused to spy on Americans."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10 2019, @01:30AM (3 children)
You have to keep this in perspective. If each of the 384 million residents of Rhode Island got paid $1,000 then the loss is made good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10 2019, @02:24AM (2 children)
Shill, troll or in-numerate?
From http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/rhode-island-population/ [worldpopulationreview.com]
Rhode Island Population 2019 1,056,738
$384,000 / 1,056,738 = $0.363 per resident. I'd rather have my data than my 36 cents.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10 2019, @06:10AM (1 child)
Not all of the residents, you idiot, only the ones whose data was sold! Innumeracy seems to follow upon illiteracy and poor reading comprehension.
Now do you know, at the end, who I truly am! I AM BATMAN!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10 2019, @01:02PM
> If each of the 384 MILLION ...
Hi Batman, are you usually off by 10^6?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10 2019, @01:35AM (1 child)
They're also providing pictures of people's faces to the FBI, so that they can be added to their facial recognition database, ensuring that mass surveillance becomes easier and more effective.
I mean, why not sell all of our data to private entities? We're already destroying privacy and democracy on a level never before seen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10 2019, @02:29AM
Don't you put on Kiss style make-up before having your DMV photo taken?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10 2019, @01:39AM
Just bidness. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10 2019, @01:46AM (3 children)
My friend's father was a retired police officer who then worked at a DMV after getting stabbed. He came up with the idea to mail people their new IDs instead of giving them out at the DMV to cut down on fraud. The government waited until he retired from the DMV then stole his idea so they didn't have to give him any credit.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday September 10 2019, @02:23AM (2 children)
Well, you have to know how to not only work alongside but also handle unruly Mexicans and Blacks to work at a DMV, but all joking aside, everything in a database is sold to the lowest bidder and the reason why you don't hear about it despite it being widespread is because the media is Jew-run. We could only hope that there is a bright side to this story, and that bright side would be somebody knowing which California license holders are illegally here and not.
A less spiccific example, ever wonder why your creditors always call you right after you pick up your phone on your 15-minute break, or why you auto insurance company jacks up your rates to twice as much because they know you drive out of town once a month?
I will leave it up to the readers of this comment to figure out why, but some people are very powerful and good at making more money at the expense of others. Let that sink in for a moment. Amen. God Bless.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10 2019, @02:36AM (1 child)
No, because those things don't happen. Have you tried chatting with an AI about your delusion of persecution?
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday September 10 2019, @02:45AM
Yeah, I did, and it replied, "Oohh-ee-ooh-ah-ah, ting tang walla-walla bing bang. Oohh-ee-ooh-ah-ah, ting tang walla-walla bing bang!"
(Score: 2) by optotronic on Tuesday September 10 2019, @02:06AM (5 children)
The state requires us to provide the information so we can drive or have identification, then they sell it?! We have no other option, other than moving, perhaps.
How is this tolerable? I haven't read the article because I get a 404 page on the article link. Maybe if I allowed the 22 referenced domains to run scripts...
Are we lucky the IRS isn't doing this yet? Or are they?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10 2019, @02:33AM
Why don't you tell us? You're obviously tolerating it right now.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday September 10 2019, @02:33AM
Uh...yeah, Mr. FBI agent, perhaps you also want to convince us all to be sovereign citizens, or maybe you want us to drive that big van full of gasoline into Baltimore or something, even offering us a lot of money to do it, or offering us a lot of money to find somebody for you who is willing to do it.
No thanks. I believe in peace and love and multiculturalism.
(Score: 3, Informative) by optotronic on Tuesday September 10 2019, @01:03PM
On my desktop computer I was able to read the article and did a little research. The posted BMV policy for Ohio certainly attempts to make the sale of driver license records sound more palatable:
https://www.bmv.ohio.gov/more-records-personalinfo.aspx [ohio.gov]
The other Ohio information I found is from 2010, and may be outdated:
https://www.cleveland.com/open/2010/07/ohio_collects_millions_selling.html [cleveland.com]
None of this makes me happy, but I've postponed my letter to my state senator for now. I have more thinking to do.
As for those who think violence is the first response to undesirable government action... did you miss some high school classes?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Tuesday September 10 2019, @09:34PM
It's been like this forever. In order to have a drivers license, you needed to surrender your privacy. These days the DMV has biometric records, fingerprints, birth records, and is usually cross-referenced against the IRS with a SOS#. Not to mention, your personal address. I can't recall specifically, but I wouldn't be surprised if the DMV was collecting phone numbers and email addresses.
DMVs have never protected citizen data. Not once. At least not beyond the rudimentary network protections that exist, and at a policy level, there are numerous entities and organizations that gain access to this information. It's always been known that a dirty PI can get you an address or phone number on somebody. There are online portals for businesses that provide this as a service.
You do have an OPTION. It's a rather simple one. LIE, LIE, and then LIE SOME MORE. I've never once given accurate information to a government entity. Maybe a phone number, but never an address. Not even the unPatriot Act bullshit with the banks revealed my personal address and secured information, because I deliberately perform fraud (well quasi-fraud). I've rented trailers in people's backyards, and performed other tricks to get a seemingly legit address to pass the banks and the DMV systems. The DMV will verify birth records, while the banks verify where you actually live by demanding proof of ownership, leasing, or a rental agreement.
A lot of times it depends on the zoning, but if you can find a mail service business in a residential zoned space, they will show up to information systems as residential. After a bit of work, my drivers license lists my mail service's address instead of mine. So if you do any research, or just plain walk in and demand my info, the mail service business will give you a copy of my drivers license which lists their own address :)
Actively lying is your only real defense. Your only other option is to have your privacy completely and totally erased. Anybody with a little bit of money and an active interest in you, can find you, or DOX you. Don't even get me started on the amount of information that most people reveal to social media and tech companies. That often eclipses whatever damage the DMV could do to you, and is apparently accessible to any "affiliate business" performing "marketing" on their behalf.
A real and true option to solve this would be to allow everyone's personal address (where they actually sleep) to be protected information by law. A new mail service business, supported by a team of lawyers, could allow you to present this "managed" address to government and private entities. The main difference is that this service would be legally allowed to represent your interests as a service provided by lawyers. They could legally accept summons, answer subpoenas, and reveal your personal address to law enforcement requesting it. As your lawyer too, they have ways to contact you, making that address as official and viable as say the ones used for domain name privacy.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Chocolate on Wednesday September 11 2019, @04:21AM
Easy.
Step 1: Bend over
Step 2: ...
Bit-choco-coin anyone?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10 2019, @02:19AM
When you have the US government?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10 2019, @02:37AM
The elections department here provides loads of personal information to anybody who asks for free.
(Score: 2) by Z-A,z-a,01234 on Tuesday September 10 2019, @07:22AM (1 child)
Ah the great workings of the capitalism. Let the market decide and all will be good.
Screw those communist Europeans and their ideas about privacy and respect.
And they say "This is the best system we've got! What are the alternatives? None!" Anyone agreeing with the quotation deserve what they get.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10 2019, @11:40AM
Where do you idiots come from that cant tell the difference between government and free markets? Oh yea, Europe where you are so far along the fascism path you can't even tell the difference between the two anymore.
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Tuesday September 10 2019, @03:59PM
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday September 10 2019, @05:55PM
It is nice that some states prevent stalkers by limiting data after the Schaeffer murder, even though it seems like Federal overreach into something which shouldn't be in their purview. But I'm old enough to remember when such records were considered public and it wasn't a bad thing at all. And are they actually profiting, or just charging for the time it takes to provide the information? That said, yes, Virginia, Private Investigators exist. Their existence is not evil. In every state I've lived they have to be licensed (though I guess per Wikipedia in some they might not?), and while it may not seem like it they do have professional standards which must be maintained and laws to follow if they want to keep their licenses.
And Driver Abstract fees, mentioned in TFA, are extremely misleading. Any job I've ever had where I was expected to drive as part of the job duties required me to obtain my own extract and submit it; I think I had to pay around $5 for it.
Sloppily written article with no real substance of concern. Nothing to see here. Moving along...
This sig for rent.