As if we all needed another reason to hate the Department of Motor Vehicles.
A new report from Vice’s Motherboard shows that the most despised of all government agencies has been selling our personal information in order to raise revenue. The California DMV, specifically, raises $50 million a year selling this information. From Motherboard:
In a public record acts request, Motherboard asked the California DMV for the total dollar amounts paid by commercial requesters of data for the past six years. The responsive document shows the total revenue in financial year 2013/14 as $41,562,735, before steadily climbing to $52,048,236 in the financial year 2017/18.
The document doesn’t name the commercial requesters, but some specific companies appeared frequently in Motherboard’s earlier investigation that looked at DMVs across the country. They included data broker LexisNexis and consumer credit reporting agency Experian. Motherboard also found DMVs sold information to private investigators, including those who are hired to find out if a spouse is cheating. It is unclear if the California DMV has recently sold data to these sorts of entities.
The California DMV told Motherboard that it also sells the information to “insurance companies, vehicle manufacturers, and prospective employers.” A spokesperson for the DMV also told the outlet that the money raised from selling personal information helps fund highway and public safety projects “including availability of insurance, risk assessment, vehicle safety recalls, traffic studies, emissions research, background checks, and for pre- and existing employment purposes.”
“The DMV takes its obligation to protect personal information very seriously. Information is only released pursuant to legislative direction, and the DMV continues to review its release practices to ensure information is only released to authorized persons/entities and only for authorized purposes. The DMV also audits requesters to ensure proper audit logs are maintained and that employees are trained in the protection of DMV information and anyone having access to this information sign a security document,” the spokesman wrote to the outlet.
Other DMVs across the country have also sold residents’ personal information. A previous report from Motherboard showed that some of these DMVs have removed access from some of the buyers after they “abused the data.”
Private investigators are one of the sources of income for the DMVs, bringing concerns not just over privacy, but also over safety, as those trying to escape an abusive spouse may be found thanks to the DMVs willingness to sell personal information. More from Motherboard:
The Virginia DMV has sold data to 109 private investigator firms, according to a spreadsheet obtained by Motherboard. The New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission has sold data to at least 16 private investigation firms, another spreadsheet shows. The Delaware DMV has data sharing agreements with at least a dozen investigation firms, and Wisconsin has around two dozen current agreements with such firms, other documents show.
Of course, this is all legal, Motherboard reported, thanks to a 1994 law called the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (DPPA). Despite its name, the law allowed numerous exemptions to restrictions placed on DMV sales. The law was designed after a stalker hired a private investigator to find the address of actress Rebecca Schaeffer. The stalker murdered Schaeffer using the information provided to the investigator by the DMV.
One of the exemptions in the DPPA still allows the DMV to provide information to private investigators, meaning another Schaeffer situation is still possible.