DMVs Are Selling Your Data to Private Investigators (vice.com) 106
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 reported Friday. From the report: 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.
Piece of the action (Score:3)
Most people want a fair cut of their piece of the action. If our personal ID is for sale, we should profit from it, not the DMV.
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More to the point, if your personal ID information is for sale, then you should be the one selling it, not some faceless DMV. There's no telling how far that information will travel. The organizations buying it will quickly realize they can in turn sell it and recoup their original money.
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More to the point, if your personal ID information is for sale, then you should be the one selling it, not some faceless DMV. There's no telling how far that information will travel. The organizations buying it will quickly realize they can in turn sell it and recoup their original money.
Your information is worth $0.02. Don't spend it all in one place.
Now the information of 10,000,000?
That's worth $200,000.00
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There's a difference between public data and data that provided for a public purpose. If my personal identification information is being used for identity verification, it's useless if all that information is public data.
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Re:Piece of the action (Score:5, Insightful)
Between state and federal taxation, I easily pay in the 33% range, and a good bit more if you throw in sales, tax, property tax, etc...etc....etc.
I fucking pay enough.
Let the govt do like regular households do....cut back on spending.
Cut expenses.
Cut back worthless programs.
Cut wasteful spending.
Learn to live within the govt's means and follow a fucking budget.
And as far as selling my private information, somewhere it has seemingly been forgotten, THEY are there to SERVE ME, not the other way around.
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"I fucking pay enough."
You will never pay enough.
~Government
government isn't a household (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know if you know how government works, but governments are nothing at all like private households.
Re:Piece of the action (Score:5, Interesting)
And as far as selling my private information, somewhere it has seemingly been forgotten, THEY are there to SERVE ME, not the other way around.
If they are there to serve the people, why do the people keep insisting that the "government" sell parts of itself to unaccountable private entities who serve only the owners?
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You think you pay enough but you want more than what today's taxes pay for.
People want the potholes fixed and the freeways expanded, but they're unwilling to pay a higher gas tax to make that happen. Instead, money is taken from your payroll to backfill the shortfall and then increase the national debt to pay for things that should have been paid for via payroll taxes.
People want the DMV to update their systems and be open during more convenient hours, but they don't want to pay higher vehicle registrations
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Not really, I want them to merely provide the traditional services they've done, the bare minimum to get me back in my car and on my way.
People want the potholes fixed and the freeways expanded, but they're unwilling to pay a higher gas tax to make that happen. Instead, money is taken from your payroll to backfill the shortfall and then increase the national debt to pay for things that should have been paid for via payroll taxes.
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Wrong.
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Spending Priorities (Score:4, Interesting)
You think you pay enough but you want more than what today's taxes pay for.
In some areas, yes. In other areas I think people would be happy paying for a lot less. If you compare the US to say Canada or the UK then the overall tax burden does not seem to be very different and yet the UK and Canada provide free healthcare, far cheaper university tuition and better government services etc.
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I believe in EU, they pay significantly more than 30% in taxes......
Which is why I said Canada and the UK (which is still in the EU as I write this). You do pay more in France, Germany etc. but you get more services in return.
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the people pating are paying enough. lets start collecting from the people not paying anything.
Any information the government has on you will be used inappropriately or lost or leaked.
The are the worst stewards of data.
We really should stop telling everyone the horse is out of the barn.
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Road maintenance is supposed to be covered by taxes. Except they siphon off that money into the general fund and spend it on political pet projects.
How about a proper accounting of the money? Let's look at how much is collected from the fuel tax and compare it to what we need to spend to maintain the roads. If there isn't enough collected, I am all for increasing the tax. If they collect more than necessary, I expect a damn refund - although I would allow for a "rainy day fund" to deal with unforeseen e
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"Cut back worthless programs."
And those are?
There really aren't a lot of "worthless" programs (Score:2)
That said more money won't get you more privacy. The amounts of money being made selling your data are tiny. Your more likely to get a phony speeding ticket (and you can stop those by using California's anti-speed trap laws as an model)
Instead if you want this crap to stop you need to vote for pro-consumer politicians
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Sure..they may not take PAC and other dirty money, and frankly, I can respect that.
HOWEVER, those cats are wanting to raise the taxes on everyone in the US by horrible amounts, they have to to pay for all the 'free' stuff the
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The problem isn't cheap taxpayers, it's asshole politicians who WASTE money.
Every politician is an asshole except the ones who bring home the bacon in YOUR district. That's a taxpayer problem.
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Any politician with actual bacon in your home would be in mortal danger of being devoured!
Re: Piece of the action (Score:2)
We could raise taxes only on private investigators. Then the rest of us won't have to pay.
So? (Score:3)
Look folks, if your name and address needs to be a secret, become a sovereign citizen, change your secret name and disappear to a compound in Idaho, raise chickens and maybe a milch cow or two to barter with the other person living in the holler over. You can get bullets from him for a few chickens. Might even have a daughter you can wife up for a cow or two.
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Re:So? (Score:4, Funny)
It's a large WW2-era submarine the Germans used to run supplies to their attack subs.
It's also a slang version of "milk cow", but from careful reading of the parent post and its context, it's clearly the sub.
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It's a large WW2-era submarine the Germans used to run supplies to their attack subs.
It's also a slang version of "milk cow", but from careful reading of the parent post and its context, it's clearly the sub.
Nah, Can't get a sub to idaho where the folks have to build their compound.
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en.wikipedia.org [wikipedia.org]
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I tries to buy a milch cow, but the best I could do was this: http://www.bronzecannons.net/s... [bronzecannons.net]
Fleabay also had a wet "submarine" for divers from WWII supposedly.
And a quick google suggested there is a market for recovering old ships.
Maybe the next time I'm fantastically wealthy and bored (basically never). Guess I'll just keep going to work.
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Languages (Score:2)
A german kuh?
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and your photo, D.O. B. weight, drivers licence number, immigration status what else is on your driver's licence ?
You forgot hair color. I was thinking about being sarcastic. But why should I give a damn about any of those things being public knowledge?
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So that person with a grudge against you for something you wrote on the interwebs can track you down and certain you are the one s/he wants to whack?
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So that person with a grudge against you for something you wrote on the interwebs can track you down and certain you are the one s/he wants to whack?
Whoa... paranoia raises it's head.
Y'all been watching too much stuff, be it Television or on the internet.
I have people who would like to see me dead. If you don't have enemies, you aren't doing anything of note.
Fact is, in a country of over 300 million people (USA) there is something bad happening to someone almost every day. And someone getting whacked in Cali is reported like it happened next door. And if you are impressionable, you think of it that way. You end up thinking that if you don't hi
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There used to be a big fat book that listed everyone's name, telephone number and street address. It would also list children's names if they had their own number. It was called 'The Phone Book'.
Private investigators are licensed to sit in their car and surveil anyone for any reason. When you walk around outside, people can stare at you. In my neighborhood, I'm pretty sure there's a company that's gathering data on everyone's whereabouts. It's just a guy sitting in a big odd-looking van in different pa
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It's just a guy sitting in a big odd-looking van in different parts of the neighborhood, randomly. He'll sit in that van for 8 or 9 hours a day, I've watched him. Seriously? I'd either call the police, or ask the guy his business if he sat in a van in my neighborhood 8-9 hours a day.
I know people get very strange about this sort of thing. I read all the time on nextdoor.com about people being paranoid about someone sitting in a car for 10 minutes, and then "suddenly leave" when they opened the door. It's almost certainly nothing.... maybe the dude is eating a sandwich, or figuring out directions, etc. But 8 hours is incredibly creepy and suspicious, and even I'd call the cops, and find out information about this person myself.
Probably a stakeout.
And these paranoids. A lot of places you are required by law to pull over if taking a cell phone or text message. I've done it myself for a few minutes. That's why I suggest to the paranoids that they drop out of society and move to Idaho.
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And these paranoids. A lot of places you are required by law to pull over if taking a cell phone or text message. I've done it myself for a few minutes. That's why I suggest to the paranoids that they drop out of society and move to Idaho.
There's a fine line between paranoia and reason these days. Most of the stuff that was just paranoia in the 90s and early 2000s has come to light today as being quite valid. Remember all of those idiots telling you to cover the camera [techwalla.com] on your phone/laptop? Well, today you can purchase these [webcamcover.com]. All those idiots that said that facebook was a data-mining operation [datamation.com]? Next thing you know, there'll be software that can, on-the-fly, manipulate any video and sound to fit any narrative [youtube.com] and... oh wait.
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And these paranoids. A lot of places you are required by law to pull over if taking a cell phone or text message. I've done it myself for a few minutes. That's why I suggest to the paranoids that they drop out of society and move to Idaho.
There's a fine line between paranoia and reason these days. Most of the stuff that was just paranoia in the 90s and early 2000s has come to light today as being quite valid. Remember all of those idiots telling you to cover the camera [techwalla.com] on your phone/laptop?
I remember them, but not as idiots.I've covered my cameras with tape even before people figured that out.
All those idiots that said that facebook was a data mining operation?
Same thing.
The camera business wasn't paranoia - it was understanding how laptops and computer cameras work. Unless there is a specific electronic break in the wiring, there is nothing to prevent a camera from being activated.
Facebook is a different matter. You get an outfit that is not charging you for all those services. Facebook isn't the product - you are the product.
That isn't paranoia, it's
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But that's only for a few minutes. Not hours. And most certainly they don't happen consistently over a period of time.
Though, excepting very few cases, a phone call or text isn't generally important enough to warrant pulling over to deal with. And the cases where it might
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But that's only for a few minutes. Not hours.
Which is why I differentiated between Stakeouts and people talking or texting.
A paranoid won't care which.
We're shaping society to appease the worst cowards in it. I know a couple paranoids they don't appease. Get the cars off the streets, and they start worrying about robotic insects with cameras and mics in them. Here ya go! https://mashable.com/2016/05/1... [mashable.com] https://www.technologyreview.c... [technologyreview.com]
As soon as they get the power source figured, the'yll be able to fly right up to you and steal your darkest
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There used to be a big fat book that listed everyone's name, telephone number and street address. It would also list children's names if they had their own number. It was called 'The Phone Book'.
There was also the option to have your number unlisted. At one point this was an additional charge and eventually a free option. Does the DMV have an opt out any more? Maryland had this option in the 90s. I don't know if they still do. Nor if the current state I live in does. Searching every phonebook for the hundreds of areas of an entire state is a hell of a lot different from a database of an entire state.
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There was also the option to have your number unlisted. At one point this was an additional charge and eventually a free option. Does the DMV have an opt out any more?
This is a beautiful point. Makes me wonder...
I found the following here [fox10tv.com]. It's from Joseph Malley of Dallas, Texas:
"Go to the Department of Motor Vehicle," Malley explained. "They have, under the DPPA, the ability to ask for a five-year check. The state of Alabama can request from the two parties that are obtaining the database that they provide to the state of Alabama a list of any party that is actually purchasing that data. Obviously, if you were to see that you would then see the marketing companies that are then buying from these parties."
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There used to be a big fat book that listed everyone's name, telephone number and street address. It would also list children's names if they had their own number. It was called 'The Phone Book'.
Private investigators are licensed to sit in their car and surveil anyone for any reason. When you walk around outside, people can stare at you. In my neighborhood, I'm pretty sure there's a company that's gathering data on everyone's whereabouts. It's just a guy sitting in a big odd-looking van in different parts of the neighborhood, randomly. He'll sit in that van for 8 or 9 hours a day, I've watched him.
This has all been going on for a long time, and hasn't seemed to cause much privacy loss.
He's probably hacking into private wifi networks with unsecure routers. Once in he digs around looking for anything of value and jacking off to naked pictures of your wife.
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I decided to remove my address from all those online listings not long ago, just to make it slightly harder to find my address. It's not THAT hard to become at least a little more private. It can be done with just an hour or two of work, some stamps, and just waiting a few weeks.
People would probably not want to be a Radio Amateur. My name, address, license level and email addresses and maidenhead location are there for anyone to find. I have to identify on the air.
I simply do not care.
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Moreover, quoting TFS:
explicitly advertise that they will surveil spouses to see if they're cheating.
Wouldn't a "private investigator" just ask you where your spouse lives and what they look like when you hire them? It's not as if they need to get that from the DMV.
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Moreover, quoting TFS:
explicitly advertise that they will surveil spouses to see if they're cheating.
Wouldn't a "private investigator" just ask you where your spouse lives and what they look like when you hire them? It's not as if they need to get that from the DMV.
Yeah. I mean unless there are PD's that randomly pick people to spy on. So if a husband or wife is suspicious, they'll give the detective the info the detective needs.
The whole thing is FUD.
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Height, weight, eye color, date of birth, my picture, whether I have glasses or not, my marital status, email address, and phone number. This is what my local BMV collects in addition to my vehicle's make/model/year, which is used to generate an estimated income.
So, are you willing to post all of that info here and now? If not, then why not? Would you like to send this info privately to telemarketers or any other marketing firm? If not, then why not?
I doubt that they are only selling your name and address w
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Height, weight, eye color, date of birth, my picture, whether I have glasses or not, my marital status, email address, and phone number. This is what my local BMV collects in addition to my vehicle's make/model/year, which is used to generate an estimated income.
So, are you willing to post all of that info here and now? If not, then why not? Would you like to send this info privately to telemarketers or any other marketing firm? If not, then why not?
I doubt that they are only selling your name and address when everything else they collect is worth far more.
All of that is online. So I guess the answer is look for it. I suspect that if I posted my email and phone here, that some Slashdotter would decide to make an example of it. And we don't want that, for either myself, or the perp. I don't react well to that sort of thing. And anyone who gets that data otherwise might annoy me, not do me harm.
Anyhow, embrace your fear and paranoia, since it is your defining quality.
I don't like it but... (Score:4, Informative)
At the same time, property records are public record too. I can't really get upset about my information being available this way when anyone can go to my county's web site and, since I own a house, look me up by name or address.
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The private investigators don't want all the data sets under a public records request.
So the states will "look" for the data needed and sort. That time to search and make ready costs money.
ie it under the "authorized to be released" part and the "Driver's Privacy Protection Act (DPPA)" with the "perfectly legal" part.
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Many counties permit lookup by name or address or parcel ID.
Re: I don't like it but... (Score:2)
Plug in the parcel id on the county website and you can see all the transfers, including the names of individuals and associated trusts.
Your name is not some big secret that you can hide practically.
Typical slashdot (Score:2)
From tfa:
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.
From what I can tell, the only companies that any DMVs sold to, were all licensed private investigators.
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....Driver's Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), a law written in the '90s...
Why the FUCK does every law that FUCKS us over have a name like its trying to protect us? The Drivers' Privacy Protection Act is the law that enables the sale of personal data?
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Because they couldn't shoehorn "For The Children" on something you gotta be 16 for.
Throwing "patriot" names onto your law to pass it has fallen out of fashion, largely due to a certain one, but stuff like RIGHT TO ___ and ____ FREEDOM ACT are still 2cool4school with those hip politics kids.
And protection. "This one is gold-plated and goes up to Protecven. So you know it's better."
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For decades and decades they've been selling to data collection and marketing folks like Acxiom [acxiom.com]....these folks use data from DMV, from the postal service to sell, market and even clean other companies' database (like Visa and other CC companies)....
Hell, they used to gather al the warranty card info you mail in to make part of their database.
I believe the US used them after 9/11 for info gathering,
"You can't professionalize unless you federalize" (Score:2)
Re: "You can't professionalize unless you federali (Score:2)
As if your insurance company, employer, and hospital didn't already sell your information multiple times.
Stalking (Score:3)
So how many demand email addresses and cell numbers then sell those to spammers/fraud call centers?
Your autombile is the pathway to loss of freedom. (Score:4, Interesting)
While we have been given the romantic image of Automobile ownership as this magical metal box, where you have the freedom to go wherever you want when ever you want. It becomes a tool for the government to control your life.
The infrastructure to get from point A-B is owned by the state, So in order for you drive such infrastructure, you need your car registered, plated, often inspected all on your dime. To ride on roads, which an expanded police force monitors and controls to make sure there is a strict adherence to the law. Driving a posted speed limit, making sure if you do pass or turn you do it the right way, even your frame of mind is policed (drunk driving, road rage, etc...). If you car doesn't have the right sticker on it, you can get pulled over and fined.
Many governments makes a bulk of its income not from taxes, but from fines of traffic violators, where to keep their government running without raising taxes, will then put traffic light cameras, place no-turn on red signs, in places where if you are at the red light you cannot see the sign. There are even special spots the government adds to the infrastructure so a police car can monitor your driving out of sight.
Also just getting up and driving cross country isn't as free as you think. You need to plan you trip, fuel up, find places to sleep, you often will not be allowed to sleep in your car along the roadway, and if you need to park somewhere you will often need to do it in prescribed areas.
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While we have been given the romantic image of Automobile ownership as this magical metal box, where you have the freedom to go wherever you want when ever you want. It becomes a tool for the government to control your life.
And yet, I can get into my car whenever I want. I can drive anywhere anytime without having to clear it with anyone. I don't have to file a flight plan and talk to controllers along the way.
It's not like a bus, where I'm shackled to the vagaries of scheduling and whims of the bus drivers.
It's not like a taxi / uber where you have to hail the ride, wait for the ride, and then hope the ride isn't a psycho killer or worse.
If speed isn't of the essence, a cross-country wandering can be fun and educational.
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Actually I live in Rural United States. And I need to commute 30 miles every day to work, and normally 10+ miles for me to get to the nearest grocery store.
The problem is the fact that the infrastructure in the United States was built around automobiles, then because everyone needed to use this infrastructure has created a situation where there were too many people driving dangerously thus having to create more laws, and then these laws brought in revenue which makes it incentive to make more laws.
The U.S.
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even your frame of mind is policed (drunk driving, road rage, etc...)
You're arguing for the freedom to drive drunk?
Re: Your autombile is the pathway to loss of freed (Score:2)
He's against the social contract. Libertarian extremists that wants maximum freedom and minimum civilization. A rugged indivualist that somehow posts online without creating his own equipment and network first.
Not private data (Score:3)
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DMV data is government data and thus not private. This is not a surprise nor is it untoward..
IRS data is government data. Should the public be able to buy copies of your tax returns?
Public Data (Score:2)
In most states DMV details are public data. No need to sell it, its already free.
20 years ago (Score:1)
Hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Many of the private investigators that DMVs have sold data to explicitly advertise that they will surveil spouses to see if they're cheating."
I say if you need a private investigator to buy address information from the DMV to locate your spouse and investigate any potential cheating perhaps the problem is larger than just the potential of cheating. Maybe living at a location, undisclosed to you, long enough to end up on their DMV record might be a key indicator that something is horribly wrong with the relationship.
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I think it's more along the lines of an investigator seeing your wife getting into a strange car or entering some unknown apartment. Who's car or apartment is that?
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They aren't necessarily using DMV information on the same cases as surveilling spouses. I suspect they offer different services to different clients.
And they may be using that to identify who the spouse is having an affair with.
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This is obviously true, and it's part of the worry. Very often the reason that person has moved to an undisclosed location is because they're fleeing from an abusive relationship, and making their DMV information available to private investigators makes it easy for their abuser to find them again.
Many Years (Score:1)
20 years to late (Score:2)
Real ID (Score:2)
Does this make Real ID a gaping security hole? It certainly sounds like it.
Old "news" (Score:2)
I'm sure it happens in other states as well.
I agree with informing those still ignorant about it, but how can anyone be surprised over it, especially these days...