
The California DMV Is Selling Drivers’ Personal Information - cgoodmac
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/evjekz/the-california-dmv-is-making-dollar50m-a-year-selling-drivers-personal-information
======
itbeho
A couple of years ago my elderly neighbor asked me to drive him to the local
DMV for an appointment with an examiner in order to have his driving
privileges restored. He'd experienced a brief medical problem but had
recovered and had signed letters from his doctors giving him the all clear.

The examiner asked all the questions you'd want to have asked to ensure public
safety. Everything seemed to be going well. But, apparently at that point, the
examiner noticed my friends political affiliation on his screen and lost his
shit over it, angrily impugning him in ways that were hostile and
unprofessional. I had to walk out of his office into the main lobby and ask
for a supervisor. I hope that was a one-off situation; A low level bureaucrat
having a bad day. But the fact that a small bit of personal data could be used
against a person in that way is troubling.

~~~
BEEdwards
Why would the DMV have access to or notice political affiliation?

Was your friend wearing a MAGA hat?

~~~
serf
>Was your friend wearing a MAGA hat?

does that somehow excuse the actions of the DMV person in any way? I don't see
how it's relevant, given that a public official shouldn't discriminate against
political affiliation regardless.

~~~
jeromegv
No need to twist everything, the question is about knowing if this is data the
DMV has on their computer, or is that something that was noticed by looking at
them. Where was this data known? This is the question.

~~~
bonestamp2
I assume it has something to do with registering to vote at the DMV (a service
they offer). I always naively thought they offered to do this because it was
just the government trying to do something that benefits the people (their
job), but now we know it's because that is very valuable information that they
can sell along with your other information (otherwise they may as well toss it
after forwarding it to the appropriate elections registration desk).

If they're going to store it for any reason, they should at least hide it from
the low level workers... there's no reason anyone, of any political
affiliation, should have to even talk about something so irrelevant to the
role of the DMV. Not to mention, it would speed things along for everyone and
that's a real benefit that we all need.

------
falcolas
I would bet fairly good money that this originally came about as part of a
government transparency effort - allowing the public to provide a check and
balance against the DMV's power, with a monetary cost to cover processing
expenses (theoretically saving tax money). They even show this occurring in
the movie "Gone in 60 Seconds" from 2000.

That it's been co-opted for marketing isn't really surprising; most of your
public records are consumed by private companies to use to make money off you.
One big example is how legal proceedings show up on your credit report.

EDIT: Your driving record is indeed a public record[1]. So, easy bet.

[1] [https://www.dmv.org/public-records/](https://www.dmv.org/public-records/)

~~~
soapboxrocket
You take the good, you take the bad.

~~~
mayormcmatt
You take it all and then you have...

~~~
falcolas
Government accountability efforts mis-used by private corporations? ;)

~~~
mixmastamyk
The facts of life.

------
sonthonax
Every single DMV does this. This data is sold to companies like Markit. It's
then resold to hedge funds, market research firms, etc.

The data is extremely specific. It's a database of the majority of Americans:

    
    
      * Name
      * Age
      * Address
      * Some contact details
      * Cars registered (and the relationship to individuals and households)

~~~
myself248
I kept my last car for 9 years, and when I bought my current car, I noticed an
immediate and MASSIVE uptick in postal spam. Not just vehicle-related either
-- I have a feeling that "registering a new car" feeds heavily into all sorts
of "target this person" algorithms.

I wish there was some way to opt out of this.

~~~
akira2501
> I wish there was some way to opt out of this.

In California, there sort of is.

First: you can register _two_ addresses with the DMV. One is your "mailing
address" and is what is shown on your ID and gets sold with dumps like this,
the other is your "residence address" and is a little bit more protected. If
someone tries to run your plate number through any civilian system, they're
only going to get your "mailing address" and NEVER your "residence address."

Second: you can get a "Private Mailbox" service. PMBs are really useful in
their own right, but with USPS rules you CANNOT send unsolicited or bulk mail
to these addresses. The USPS keeps a database and is very good about filtering
these off.

So: Get a PMB and use it as your "mailing address." This will keep the
marketers one step away from your real information and will prevent large
amounts of spam from reaching you. Most PMBs have a "forward when full" or
"forward on schedule" service, where they'll empty your box for you and then
forward all of that to whatever address you provide them.

I've been doing this for 10 years now and it's been fantastic.

~~~
driverdan
> Second: you can get a "Private Mailbox" service. PMBs are really useful in
> their own right, but with USPS rules you CANNOT send unsolicited or bulk
> mail to these addresses. The USPS keeps a database and is very good about
> filtering these off.

I've been using PMBs for 15+ years. I still get bulk junk mail.

~~~
akira2501
> I still get bulk junk mail.

I could have been more clear.. you can still get "junk mail" but you shouldn't
be getting "pre-sorted bulk mail." The latter typically comes addressed to
"RESIDENT or CURRENT OWNER" or something similar, which is a fair amount of
standard junk, but also catalogs, coupon books, weekly shopping flyers and
phone books.

Those items are typically mailed using the pre-sorted bulk rate, which is not
available for PMBs and a few other types of addresses.

Anyone can just send regular rate mail to a PMB and that can obviously be
"junk" or "unsolicited commercial" mail, so there are no special restrictions
in that sense, but compared to my prior residential mail volume my PMB only
receives about 10% the amount of "junk" that I used to endure.

------
sarcasmatwork
Will CA be in violation if their own privacy laws?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Ac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Act)

~~~
joshuaheard
It only applies to businesses, not government, of course. My question is, if
they are collecting $50 million per year, why are my fees still so damn high?
I already pay over $1,000 per year to register my family's three cars, and to
put my name in their database. Now they are collecting money from selling this
information.

~~~
bobthepanda
Because the state does this in lieu of other, more traditional tax sources due
to crap like Prop 13.

~~~
option
California has been running budget surpluses since 2011.

~~~
bobthepanda
That's because the state is putting money in its rainy day fund for whenever
the next recession/depression shows up.

Always running the government lean means that service cuts will be much worse
during hard times because there's no money saved up.

------
sailfast
If we re-framed this as "California Hall of Records selling property purchase
records for an administrative fee" would folks have the same reaction?

Is the problem here that they are selling DMV records related to authorization
to drive a car (public records) or that in order to exist you need an
identification and therefore regardless of whether you own a car you have to
deal with the DMV?

I would argue it is the latter. Defacto sale of one's identity that is
required by the state to interact with it.

Outside of that record, I have no problem with public records being available
to the public provided the fee structure is not causing corruption / capture
(causing prices to inflate unreasonably) and data is being provided to
everyone at the same rate.

~~~
cj
> Is the problem here that they are selling DMV records related to
> authorization to drive a car (public records) or [...]

I think the problem is that they're selling people's phone number AND full
address (which most people consider private information, not assumed to be
public).

~~~
sailfast
If they sold all of that together with your name I could see that as a
problem. I didn't see that in the case of California, but follow-on Vice
articles report

> The data sold varies from state to state, but it typically includes a
> citizen's name and address. In others, it can also include their nine-digit
> ZIP code, date of birth, phone number, and email address

If a state were to sell all of those things that would indeed be odd.

------
opportune
The dumbest part about this is that for less than $1.50/person/year we could
raise the same amount of money and not have to do this. I'm honestly more
upset at how little money California gets for selling this than I am about the
selling of it.

~~~
beenBoutIT
They could use that money to build an automated DMV office free of the
lackluster human employees that seem to be a big part of the CA DMV's massive
problem. Automated DMV tellers don't get repetitive overuse injuries from
typing or close the DMV office down 5 minutes early because they want to quit
working.

~~~
jedberg
It's happening. There is an automated DMV kiosk in my local supermarket.
Vehicle registration is actually faster there than it is online!

~~~
LinuxBender
Nice! I am very much looking forward to seeing these everywhere.

------
dredmorbius
Another source of driver data sold by California and numerous other states is
smog-test results. These are sold specifically to insurance industry
processors for "policy adjustment", usually increasing rates for high-mileage
drivers, often labourers and the poor who must travel to multiple job sites or
commute long distances between affordable housing and living-wage jobs.

The California data -- in "BAR-90" or "BAR-97" formats, included 100s,
possibly several thousand, individual fields. The datasets were based on test
standards and equipment, those are documented here:
[https://www.bar.ca.gov/pdf/BAR-97_Specification_July_2017.pd...](https://www.bar.ca.gov/pdf/BAR-97_Specification_July_2017.pdf)

Key elements are the owner's name, VIN, vehicle make, model, year, and colour,
and the odometer reading (of interest to insurers).

~~~
dehrmann
> These are sold specifically to insurance industry processors for "policy
> adjustment", usually increasing rates for high-mileage drivers...

I'm not condoning selling this data, but high-mileage drivers are probably
more expensive to insure because more miles means more accidents. Auto
insurance companies shouldn't be a public policy mechanism to subsidize low-
wage workers.

~~~
dredmorbius
Yes, there's a correlated actuarial risk.

But there's also an equitibilty element to that risk: it falls inordinantly on
those who _must_ drive, must drive long distances, and have no viable
alternatives -- carpooling, transit, or remote work. Most impacted are
delivery drivers (obviously), particularly those who use their own vehicles
(e.g., pizza and other low-end delivery work), real estate agents,
construction workers, service workers, rural residents generally, and those
with nonstandard commute patterns, either off-peak, alternate-shift, multiple
jobs, or highly-variable hours.

To the extent that these are workers often under-compensated for their work,
and offering services benefiting society at large, the impacts are all the
more inequitable. The risks are independent of actual driver safety practices
and attentiveness.

Insurance is an inherently social function, one that's heavily regulated, and
has specific exemptions to anti-trust regulations, in return for the benefits
it provides. _All_ business ultimately serves the public interest (or should
-- an unpopular view but one expressed explicitly by Adam Smith), and should
society determine that a specific public interest be served, then it has the
legal authority to mandate and regulate those goals.

~~~
dehrmann
> there's also an equitibilty element to that risk...

You already said this, and while I'd like to see more data, I don't outright
disagree with the premise that low-wage workers might drive more in personal
vehicles.

And you didn't address my point that, if you think these workers should be
subsidized, there are better, more direct ways than through insurance
companies. Could be a minimum wage, tax credits for vehicles driven for work,
better regulations around personal vehicles used for work.

~~~
dredmorbius
I don't presently have access to the data. When I did, the relationships were
informally noted, though a general relationship seemed to hold.

Looking for "commute distance vs. income" I'm not finding much by way of
useful results, though a commute _time_ by state/city (tracked by the US
Census) is available. That conflates private vehicle vs. transit use (transit
tends to take longer), and congestion vs. distance. For the most part, the
data show longer times in urban and coastal states, and much shorter
especially in the intermountain / western plains states.

... _Except_ for the deep south, where you'll find _both_ low incomes _and_
long commute times.

That's very broad-scale data, but provides a hint of disparity.

[https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/money-
finance/aver...](https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/money-
finance/average-commute-time-by-city-and-state/)

------
riazrizvi
It's important to understand that extra money like this, outside of the budget
the agency needs to run itself, is a fund that the head of the agency gets to
use as a piggy bank for him and his friendly friends that write the operating
rules in the state capital. You can't fight political grease of this magnitude
with some fleeting transparency.

------
erikig
I'm curious about a couple of things that aren't quite covered in the article?

\- Where's the "Buy it Now" page for this data?

\- Is the information sold in aggregate or per record?

\- Do Californian's have an idea of who is buying the information?

\- Do Californians have an option to opt-out?

~~~
beenBoutIT
Californians are approaching a knowledge saturation point at which the
overwhelming majority will understand on some level that the bulk of their
data is available for sale any number of different ways and effectively
ubiquitous. Transparency is unavoidable; if you don't want anyone to know you
have 3 cars don't buy so many cars.

------
sys_64738
When did anybody opt-in to this misuse of this information? It should only
have a single use for verification of a driver being licensed by the DMV and
zero other uses.

------
vangelis
I've often heard the government should be operated like a company. I'm happy
to see some progress towards that goal.

------
11thEarlOfMar
"Information is only released pursuant to legislative direction, ..." I read
that: "...per the direction of lobbyists."

------
tracker1
AFAIK, in most places registration, driver's license and even voter
registration details are considered public record. There are a lot of non-
marketing reasons why companies would want to aggregate this data.

Disclaimer: I work for an election services company (printing mostly), but
don't know the details of the above.

------
kevin_thibedeau
This is nothing. New York hands over driver info for the foreign company that
operates the tolls on Canadian highway 407 in Toronto. Meanwhile other
Canadian provinces have data protection laws that protect their citizens from
this company.

------
gumby
The joke's on all those people who fell for the "Real ID" scam. I was just at
SFO and they are pushing it heavily. Provides no value to the holder, but
plenty of value to others.

~~~
wu_187
The Real ID is not a scam. The government will require it in order to use most
public and private transportation soon.

~~~
beenBoutIT
An interesting side-effect of CA making the Real ID mandatory is that it will
force an element of our population to either move to another state or submit
to whatever nefarious controls they believe the Real ID imposes upon them.

~~~
gumby
I struggle to find something that is improved by requiring a “real ID”

------
eth0up
I wonder if personal data such as organ-donor status are sold. See top comment
here
[[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21239704](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21239704)]
for the CA organ-donor online portal link and general discussion on the topic
of harvesting.

Note: I am unable to respond to comments, so don't expect it. \- verizon

------
tobltobs
In Germany and Switzerland communities do the same. This data includes name,
age, religion, car insurance and number plate, address, former address,
marriage status.

~~~
sib
The GDPR would be so proud...

------
Ididntdothis
I thought it’s best if government is run like a business?

~~~
blotter_paper
Cool, let me know when I can start my own DMV and certify myself to drive
without giving the government any information. Then it'll be like a business,
and I won't care if they sell the data _you_ willingly provide them.

~~~
falcolas
Ironically, you'd have to hand your data over to the government to form the
business, leaving you vulnerable to your data being sold _anyways_.

Plus, it's highly likely (based on existing private companies handling public
works) that you'd have to provide your own name as a driver to the government
for auditing and revocation purposes.

If you want legal rights from the government, you have to give them legal
data. And for the purposes of transparency, you have to be able to get that
data back out, which is likely how this particular loophole came about
originally.

------
newshorts
Couldn’t they just sell cookies or something instead?

I got it...

Ask the armed services for some lunch money...

The air force could just donate half a wing of an f35 and it would more than
pay for this...

------
coding123
I'm hoping Texas doesn't sell this stuff.

~~~
itronitron
Not sure if they sell it, but pretty much any personal data associated with
the state government in Texas is available for free online. For at least one
major county, there is an online database where you can get the owner details
for a given property address (and vice versa). There is other stuff available
as well, hopefully at some point Texan voters will wise up.

------
techslave
huh? don’t they all do that? i thought this was common practice and common
knowledge

------
jijji
every state is doing this and has been for a really long time (decades)

------
amznthrowaway4
This is an outrage. Only private companies like Google, Facebook, LexisNexis,
Experian, Equifax, Corelogic, Nielsen, Acxiom, Datalogix, Epsilon, Spokeo,
Radaris, ID Analytics, eBureau, Intelius, PeekYou, Rapleaf, and Recorded
Future should profit from information about me.

~~~
akersten
I get what you're saying, and broadly agree that data brokering is dirty and
gross.

But the government selling your data to the highest bidder is worse than a
private firm doing it - because they have the significant advantage of being
the source of truth of that data itself. Every other firm is likely needing to
piece together the public data that's out there, or that they've gathered
themselves, and package it up. The government can just sell the data out of
its operational database and guarantee its accuracy. The incentives here are
really grim.

We need to tell the government that this is not ok. They might even then think
of stopping private firms from doing the same.

~~~
erentz
Importantly you also absolutely can’t avoid giving your data to the
government. And if you try to lie and create a fake “DMV profile” for yourself
to keep your data secure you’re gonna end up in serious trouble.

~~~
calvinmorrison
Because drivers licenses have very little the ability to pass a drivers test.
Let's be honest.

------
vpmpaul
California is a socialist cabal and other news at 11...

~~~
dang
Would you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN?
That's not what this site is for.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
martin1975
As long as they use it to reduce wait times at the DMV and invest it in
technological improvements.. I don't think I have a problem with it. They own
my information anyway, the government compels me to give them my info, so if
they're using it wisely... more power to them.

~~~
Skunkleton
I am getting tired of seeing privacy issues treated so casually. If this
doesn't upset you, its because you are misinformed. From what do you think
many of today's largest companies are deriving their value? Why are these
companies so valuable?

Are you seriously OK with profit-driven organizations collecting information
about every aspect of your life, then turning around and using it to
manipulate your behavior?

~~~
martin1975
As long as those for profits don't share it further, I guess I'd be ok...

~~~
Skunkleton
You should think about that a little bit harder. First off, you don’t need to
guess, this is already happening. Second, there is already obvious societal
harm being done. How do you think we ended up with an antivax movement, or
hyper polarized politics?

