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.<p>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.
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.<p>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.<p>EDIT: Your driving record is indeed a public record[1]. So, easy bet.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.dmv.org/public-records/" rel="nofollow">https://www.dmv.org/public-records/</a>
Every single DMV does this. This data is sold to companies like Markit. It's then resold to hedge funds, market research firms, etc.<p>The data is extremely specific. It's a database of the majority of Americans:<p><pre><code> * Name
* Age
* Address
* Some contact details
* Cars registered (and the relationship to individuals and households)</code></pre>
Will CA be in violation if their own privacy laws?<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Act" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Ac...</a>
If we re-framed this as "California Hall of Records selling property purchase records for an administrative fee" would folks have the same reaction?<p>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?<p>I would argue it is the latter. Defacto sale of one's identity that is required by the state to interact with it.<p>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.
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.
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.<p>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: <a href="https://www.bar.ca.gov/pdf/BAR-97_Specification_July_2017.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.bar.ca.gov/pdf/BAR-97_Specification_July_2017.pd...</a><p>Key elements are the owner's name, VIN, vehicle make, model, year, and colour, and the odometer reading (of interest to insurers).
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.
I'm curious about a couple of things that aren't quite covered in the article?<p>- Where's the "Buy it Now" page for this data?<p>- Is the information sold in aggregate or per record?<p>- Do Californian's have an idea of who is buying the information?<p>- Do Californians have an option to opt-out?
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.
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.<p>Disclaimer: I work for an election services company (printing mostly), but don't know the details of the above.
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.
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.
I wonder if personal data such as organ-donor status are sold. See top comment here [<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21239704" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21239704</a>] for the CA organ-donor online portal link and general discussion on the topic of harvesting.<p>Note: I am unable to respond to comments, so don't expect it.
- verizon
In Germany and Switzerland communities do the same. This data includes name, age, religion, car insurance and number plate, address, former address, marriage status.
Couldn’t they just sell cookies or something instead?<p>I got it...<p>Ask the armed services for some lunch money...<p>The air force could just donate half a wing of an f35 and it would more than pay for this...
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.
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.