
California DMV Is Selling Drivers' Data to Private Investigators - pseudolus
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/dyzeza/california-dmv-data-private-investigators
======
davidajackson
>The California DMV told Motherboard "the DMV does not sell information, but
recovers the cost of providing information as allowed by law."

This comment seems like a lie, or at the least sly misdirection. According to
this article the DMV is making 50M a year and openly admits that they redirect
profits to other initiatives, they're not just "recovering the cost".

It's like saying, "I'm a software engineer, I sit at home and recoup the cost
of sitting at my computer all day."

~~~
lazzlazzlazz
Really? This seems like a pretty clear explanation to me.

They are required by law to provide information. That's not selling... that's
just complying with their obligation to provide certain data.

And they charge a fee for it.

In other words, if you want to prevent them from providing information, _you
need to change the laws requiring they share information_.

~~~
jjeaff
Sort of?

Is Amazon not "selling" retail products because they aren't really making a
profit on it? In fact, they aren't always even recouping their full cost of
selling products, those losses are offset by other revenue streams like aws.

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zamfi
The saddest part of all this is that the California DMV is making only $50m/yr
— that’s literally about $1/yr for each Californian, a little more if you only
count driving-age residents, and probably less if you count cars, not people —
at what cost?

Stalkers, murders, debt collectors, etc., lives made easier / possible?

A sad state of affairs.

~~~
joshuaheard
The data is not sold to the public. You must be a private investigator,
lawyer, debt collector or other limited party. The data is used mainly to find
people and enforce their legal obligations. It's been going on for many years
and is widely known. I'm surprised this is a story.

~~~
btilly
In theory it is not sold to the public. In practice, it isn't hard for
motivated members of the public to figure out how to get access.

I personally know someone who was a victim of stalking back in the 90s. Her
stalker managed to find out where she lived by getting it from the California
DMV. The only way she found to block it was to move and have her car owned by
someone else so that there would be no DMV record.

The result is that while this is not new, it really should be a story.

~~~
giantg2
It's also not that hard to get the information from other sources too.

If your scenario happened in the 90s, it might have been before the DPPA law
took effect.

The author has a clear bias and is using an event that took place before the
protections were in place to further their agenda.

~~~
btilly
It would have been before DPPA.

However social engineers have no problem getting information. And private
investigators are easy for anyone to hire. I doubt that the DPPA will slow a
dedicated stalker much.

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devmunchies
California also takes a mandatory blood sample at birth and they sell it to
research firms.

~~~
schainker
Citation needed.

~~~
lilott8
Have had 2 kids in CA. Can confirm[1]. They even write you a pathetic "don't
go" letter when you file the paperwork to destroy the records. They allow all
sorts of organizations to use the data[2].

[1]
[https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CFH/DGDS/Pages/nbs/default....](https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CFH/DGDS/Pages/nbs/default.aspx)

[2] [https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/11/09/dna-data-
from-c...](https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/11/09/dna-data-from-
california-newborn-blood-samples-stored-sold-to-3rd-parties/)

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rgovostes
The CA Secretary of State also sells voter information, per California
Elections Code section 2194(3). The cost is $1 per thousand records, up to $30
(unclear if that's for the whole state, or if you can't request more than 30k
records).

The information is only supposed to be used for political, scholarly, or
journalistic purposes. There doesn't seem to be a way to opt out.

~~~
godelski
> (a) Except as provided in Section 2194.1 , the affidavit of voter
> registration information identified in Section 6254.4 of the Government Code
> :

> (3) Shall be provided with respect to any voter, subject to the provisions
> of Sections 2166 , 2166.5 , 2166.7 , and 2188 , to any candidate for
> federal, state, or local office, to any committee for or against any
> initiative or referendum measure for which legal publication is made, and to
> any person for election, scholarly, journalistic, or political purposes, or
> for governmental purposes, as determined by the Secretary of State.

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canada123
I briefly worked at a Canadian company which had access to yearly data from
hundreds of US counties (including DMV and voter data). The company makes
software for parts of the US government. I think we had records on >10 million
US citizens. Different counties would vary based on how much data they would
give, but many would include things like SSN and license plate (including
counties in California). I had free access to all this data, no password even
needed.

IIRC we never dealt with the DMV directly. The parts of the government we
worked with would send us the DMV and voting data. So even if you somehow get
the DMV to stop selling your data, other parts of the government will probably
keep giving it away to companies. We weren't using the data for anything
nefarious, but I'm sure there are many other less-trustworthy companies with
access to the same data.

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merricksb
Earlier related articles:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24075576](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24075576)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21631074](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21631074)

------
AlexTWithBeard
Interesting... One would expect such things to be happening in some heavy
republican we-love-business state, but not in democratic California?

~~~
thescriptkiddie
California, especially southern California, is not the leftist stronghold Fox
News wants you to believe it is. Some politicians are better than others, but
the democratic party is firmly neoliberal, pro-big-business, and generally
reactionary. See _California Über Alles_ by the Dead Kennedys.

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mjparrott
Everything about you is public, whether you like it or not. Until legal rights
to own your own data exist it will be freely bought and sold to the
highest/lowest bidder. It isn't how things should be, but it is how they are
for now.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
You should specify "in the US". In other parts of the world there are a few
restraints (e.g. Germany).

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mikece
Are there _any_ states which do not sell or turn over DMV or voter information
for a fee or subject to FOIA/Sunshine Law requests? Seems to me a very easy
way to fix this issue is to define in law that personally identifiable
information belongs to the person and not the state and that nobody not
involved in the act of voting (poll workers) or issuing DMV documents can
access the information without a search warrant signed by a judge.

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jiveturkey
Why does this story keep recurring? Oh right -- rage-clicks are good revenue.

This isn't news, and it isn't specific to CA. All 50 states sell DMV data. I
don't know about other states, but for CA it is required by law.

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thedudeabides5
Is this the first time a US Gov't org was caught selling data to the private
sector?

Does anyone have another/earlier example?

~~~
jefftk
_> Is this the first time a US Gov't org was caught selling data to the
private sector?_

The DMV is not being caught selling data; the DMV is legally required to sell
this data.

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holidayacct
This is impossible to stop, there are private companies that collect road side
camera data and combine it with cell phone GPS coordinates to figure out the
same information. If you own a home your address is apart of public record, if
you collect a paycheck anyone get run a background check on you and get the
same information.

We should just stop the illusion of privacy, your data isn't private. It may
have never been private.

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tptacek
Don't most DMVs do this?

~~~
godelski
If so then that is a bigger story, not less of one.

~~~
tptacek
I mean, maybe, but it's not news.

~~~
godelski
News doesn't just mean new stuff. It is new information to people. If people
don't know about it, it is news. Maybe not new to you, but congrats? I'm not
sure what that solves.

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epa
DMV needs to be outsourced to the auto insurers who earn off of applications.
This way we don't end up with 1 location for an entire city.

~~~
abfan1127
Arizona has "authorized 3rd party" providers who can do 90% what the DMV does.
They charge a "convenience fee" but is totally worth it since there is never a
line and they are all over the place. It seems to strike a good balance
between private/public operations.

[https://azdot.gov/motor-vehicles/mvd-hours-and-
locations/aut...](https://azdot.gov/motor-vehicles/mvd-hours-and-
locations/authorized-third-party-providers)

~~~
vajrabum
Same thing in California. I've been doing my DMV business at AAA for more than
a decade.

~~~
fermienrico
Is this really a good thing? We're empowering a whole slew of companies to
"compete" in an arena simply by the virtue of government's dysfunctional and
incompetent services?

What this does is punishes people who cannot pay convenience fees (how much or
how little that is orthogonal) and rewards people who can.

This is an extremely sad state of affairs where privatization of something
that government is _supposed_ to provide with reasonable quality and timely
manner.

This is why our country is compared to third world. Because of shit like this.

~~~
triceratops
I perform DMV functions at my local AAA office because it's more convenient
for me. I also think the DMV should provide better service. The two aren't
exclusive goals.

