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Privacy Government The Almighty Buck United States

Lawmakers Ask California DMV How It Makes $50 Million a Year Selling Drivers' Data (vice.com) 67

Posted by BeauHD from the looking-for-answers dept.
Following a report revealing the California DMV was making $50 million annually from selling drivers' information, a group of nearly a dozen lawmakers on Wednesday wrote a letter looking for answers. Motherboard reports: "What information is being sold, to whom it is sold, and what guardrails are associated with the sale remain unclear," the letter, signed by congress members including Ted Lieu, Barbara Lee, and Mike Thompson, as well as California Assembly members Kevin Mullin and Mark Stone, reads. Specifically, the letter asks what types of organizations has the DMV disclosed drivers' data to in the past three years. Motherboard has previously reported on how other DMVs around the country sold such information to private investigators, including those hired to spy on suspected cheating spouses. In an earlier email to Motherboard, the California DMV said data requesters may include insurance companies, vehicle manufacturers, and prospective employers.

The information sold in general by DMVs includes names, physical addresses, and car registration information. Multiple other DMVs previously confirmed they have cut-off access to some clients after they abused the data. On Wednesday, the California DMV said in an emailed statement, "The DMV does not sell driver information for marketing purposes or to generate revenue outside of the cost of administering its requester program -- which only provides certain driver and vehicle related information as statutorily required."

"The DMV takes its obligation to protect personal information very seriously. Information is only released according to California law, and the DMV continues to review its release practices to ensure information is only released to authorized persons/entities and only for authorized purposes. For example, if a car manufacturer is required to send a recall notice to thousands of owners of a particular model of car, the DMV may provide the car manufacturer with information on California owners of this particular model through this program," the statement added.
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Lawmakers Ask California DMV How It Makes $50 Million a Year Selling Drivers' Data More

Lawmakers Ask California DMV How It Makes $50 Million a Year Selling Drivers' Data

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  • Either they are making $50 million off a heck of a lot of FOIA requests, or they are not being especially good guardians of the information. Maybe it warrants a class action lawsuit... ;)

    • Sovereign immunity comes to mind?

    • Have you ever tried to get public record? It always seems to cost you over $50 to get that information.
      The real question is what and how much they are selling.
      For example a lost driver's license getting replaced could be seen as selling drivers data back to the driver. A criminal case collecting information on someones history of traffic violations. A Hospital system getting all the States Residents and drivers license info. So they are able to more easily find the patient and get there medical history

      • For example a lost driver's license getting replaced could be seen as selling drivers data back to the driver.

        The fact that this nonsense actually got modded up should surprise no one.

    • The best part is that they claim they don't make any money off it - they're just collecting enough to cover the expenses involved with selling the data.

      In other words, they're claiming that it costs them $50,000,000/year to allow others to have access to their data.

      LOL!

      This needs to be investigated at some point.

  • They take it seriously? How? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06, 2020 @08:44PM (#60375305)

    "The information sold in general by DMVs includes names, physical addresses, and car registration information."

    "The DMV takes its obligation to protect personal information very seriously."

    Those two sentences contradict each other. There is no guarantee for what third parties do or who they sell/give/expose it to.

    • Considering my name and address are in the phone book, that isn't so bad.

      Car registration? Sucks for those who own classic cars. I get a couple of postcards a year asking to sell my antique Porsche, sigh unseen, for "absolute top dollar".

      If I weren't so sentimentally attached to it, I'd take 'em up, just to see the reaction on their faces when they show up. Rusty non-running hunk. But restorable, and workable, so One Day ....

      • I'd take 'em up, just to see the reaction on their faces when they show up.

        If you think the look on their faces would be amazing, just wait to see the face you make when you hear the lowball figure they have in mind for "absolute top dollar"!

        Hope you can find a decent buyer for your Porsche that really will fix it up OK and give you a reasonable amount for it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eepok ( 545733 )

      It depends on the definition of "personal information". The phone books connects a lot of phone numbers, names, and addresses.

      I am curious about what vehicle registration information is sold.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by wv5k ( 771543 )
      ESPECIALLY where anyone connected with an insurance company is concerned.... ;-)

  • Doesn't make sense (Score:5, Informative)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Thursday August 06, 2020 @08:49PM (#60375309)

    From TFA:

    Many of the private investigators that DMVs have sold data to explicitly advertise that they will surveil spouses to see if they're cheating.

    If I hire a gumshoe to tail my wife, I can easily provide him with all the data the DMV has. Something else is afoot here.

    • One private investigator takes different cases (Score:5, Interesting)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Thursday August 06, 2020 @08:59PM (#60375349) Journal

      When I was a private investigator, I had different people contact me about types of cases, but *most* fell into one of two categories:

      1. Finding people who skipped bail (bounty hunting)
      2. Cheating spouse

      If a fugitive, or their girlfriend, registers a car at a certain address, I might find the fugitive at that address. So I would have use of that information.

      If it's a cheating spouse case, car registration wouldn't be useful. The same PI can and does work cases where it would be useful, and cases where would not be useful. The story errs by trying to imply a link between the two different things - PIs could sometimes use that information, and PIs sometimes work cheating spouse cases, the two are not connected.

      * Most of the time I tried to talk to the potential client about trust and relationships rather than investigating what their partner was doing. Tailing the partner doesn't solve the real problem, which is a trust and relationship problem.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      All the data the DMV has on your wife sure, but what about the data the DMV has on whoever you suspect her of cheating with?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        what about the data the DMV has on whoever you suspect her of cheating with?

        If I were a PI: "Yeah. Your wife is cheating." If they want to know who with, not from me. I don't want to get in the middle of a murder investigation.

    • If I hire a gumshoe to tail my wife, I can easily provide him with all the data the DMV has.

      I'm definitely not defending the DMVs abuse of customer privacy, but here is an example how that information would be used. A known vehicle (the spouse's) is seen in a parking lot next to an unknown vehicle and the pair is in one of the vehicles together. The investigator can look up the unknown vehicle's plate to try and find out who that other person is, and then investigate that person in more depth. So it's not about the spouse, but whoever the other person is.

  • Its your information, the only person allowed to sell it is yourself! This is just criminal behavior in my book.

    • A percentage of this is people paying to get their own MVR (motor vehicle report) which I believe is now ten bucks. I think they had a five dollar version but got rid of it. So you have to pay for access to your own data. And then there's employers verifying driving history as condition of employment.

      • $10?? I could see a nominal fee, like $1, just to defray the cost of maintaining the database and discourage abuse (probably don't want bots scaping it all), but ten? That's BS. They don't even need to pay someone to pull the records and produce a report!
    • Is it though? It's information about you, but does that mean it belongs solely to you? How does the fact that one pays to enter that information into a publicly-owned database of people who have been granted the privilege of driving, or to register your ownership of a vehicle, affect that calculation?

  • DMV monopolies (Score:5)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Thursday August 06, 2020 @09:26PM (#60375425) Journal

    State DMVs are one of the most abusive monopolistic "businesses" in the USA. Virginia's DMV website is an unbelievably tedious thing to use, literally requiring you to enter your SSN along with verifying answers to various questions ("Which of the following vehicles did you own in 2010?") , in addition to your login ID and password, EVERY TIME you log in. Because, you know, it would be horrible for someone to hack into my account and pay my registration fees for me. Which is about the only thing you can even do on the site.

    Also, since they are government agencies, they close for every obscure holiday known. No other proper business could get by with this, because their competitors would be focused on actually serving the customer. However, when you are a government operated monopoly, well, the customers have no other choice in the matter whatsoever.

    One of the most ridiculous thing our DMVs started doing was charging a "convenience fee" for anyone coming into the DMV in person to do business that can be done on the website (years ago, pre-COVID). Screw you if you do not have good internet, or you are too old to do those kinds of transactions online (like my grandparents), or if you don't feel like jumping through the most tedious login process of any website I've ever used. Because it's just a horrible thing to actually cause the people in the local DMV office to do work they are getting paid to do.

    I could go on, but I'm already getting annoyed enough talking about it already.

    • Ah, I guess we should get off your damn lawn, then?

    • WAIT! Just hold the f- up for a minute!

      They charge a convenience fee if you show up in person at the DMV? The least convenient place in the nation?

      Not if you actually do it the convenient way and use the website, where you don't need to stand in line or wait for your ticket to be called surrounded by other bored, annoyed and unhappy people, half of whom always seem to have neglected to bathe for a few days; you get charged extra for the "convenience" of being in that hellhole?

      Am I safe in assuming

      • Actually, no. While both houses of the Virginia state legislature are currently Democratic by narrow margins, before the 2019 election, both houses had been solidly Republican for twenty years, except for one term where the Senate was Democratic.

    • One of the most ridiculous thing our DMVs started doing was charging a "convenience fee" for anyone coming into the DMV in person to do business that can be done on the website (years ago, pre-COVID). Screw you if you do not have good internet, or you are too old to do those kinds of transactions online (like my grandparents)

      This type of "convenience fee" is wrong regardless of your Internet connection quality, or if you're older. If the point of the "convenience fee" is to encourage people to use the web

  • Facebook Model: You are the product (Score:3)

    by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Thursday August 06, 2020 @09:34PM (#60375435)

    California Court Rules on ‘Misleading if Not Outright False’ Voter Guide for Property Tax Measure [californiaglobe.com]

    California pols are taking a page from Facebook. Taxpayers are the product. Campaign contributors are the customers.

    • Every California ballot initiative is some Orwellian title. However, it's very annoying how one-sided that article is. It mentions in thete many times that they think it should be titled "The largest property tax increase in California history." (which is hyperbolic as can be) but never mention the "misleading" title it has that is supposedly problematic.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mvdwege ( 243851 )
        It's no coincidence it's so annoying. The linked site is basically a Breitbart/Infowars propaganda machine dressed up nicely.
  • "Specifically, the letter asks what types of organizations has the DMV disclosed drivers' data to in the past three years"

    Anyone who will pay
  • I work in the equivalent of our DMV (non-US). Registration and licensing information is the holy grail of our information assets, if we were selling that information for profit I'm sure there would be riots in the streets.

  • Take note: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tiqui ( 1024021 ) on Friday August 07, 2020 @02:24AM (#60375931)

    The Democrats who run California, dominating the political system by far more than super-majorities, did not openly and honestly answer even the most basic questions about this.

    And some of you still think that because they sometimes offer up policies they KNOW will either not be enacted into law through legitimate processes, or will be overturned as un-Constitutional, they are somehow on "your side" in the fight for privacy...

    Ha!

    You do NOT have to assume the Republicans are better on this stuff (certainly the "establishment" sort in DC are not), in order to wake up and see that the Dems are not actually honest about this and not your friends either.

  • These "law makers" ought to address why Cali is $1T in debt, why their cities are over-run by homeless populations, why their population is net negative for the first time ever. While serious, the DMV issue pales in comparison.

    • why their cities are over-run by homeless populations,

      I'll answer that one. Many people think California has Rent Control but it does not, it has Rent Stabilization, meaning, there are are protections against incumbent renters, but once a renter leaves, a property owner is free to jack up the rent, thus incentivizing some pretty horrific behavior by "developers". They kick people out of the homes then sell them to often foreign nationals who are looking to park their money. (I still haven't figured out why that is a worthwhile thing for them to do, but it seem

  • California has refused to share this info with ICE in order to shield illegal aliens (a Federal crime by the way). Could ICE have just bought it? Is that window still open? I'd love to finally see some action on that.

  • "With considerable glee, I would say."

  • google, or facebook, or any other social media/advertising company?

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