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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 co

• deleted 6y ago
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• giantg2 6y ago
  Do you think stalkers and murderers are commonly using this data? It sounds like they passed a law to prevent this type of issue from happening again. This data doesn't seem that sensitive or difficult to obtain via other methods depending on the exact situation. You should check out the system that the repo industry uses to track vehicle location via license plate scanning.
  • liability 6y ago
    Does it have to be common for it to be a problem? Since they shouldn't be doing it in the first place, if even one person gets stalked using this data that's one too many.
    • giantg2 6y ago
      That occurred before the law was implemented. The law put restrictions on who could access the information and for what purposes. That's why I'm asking if it is still a problem. Also, using the 'one is too many' argument is not valid. We could apply that to outlaw cars, electricity, or any other thing that is accepted as useful but also kills people. The DPPA law allows debt collectors, repo men, and other neccessary societal systems to function while providing protection for the data. If there have been only a handful of incidents over the years, then I think it would still be a net gain for society. If there is a better way to regulate the data and still allow the systems in society to function, that would be great to explore, but I don't see any obvious improvements.
      • liability 6y ago
        > The DPPA law allows debt collectors, repo men, and other neccessary societal systems to function You're wrong. They can function just fine without data from the DVM. Therefore, anybody being harmed by the sale of this data is one too many because there is nothing to offset this harm. Some harm is acceptable when it's offset by something else, like the utility of cars. That is not the case here.
        • giantg2 6y ago
          How can they function without it? If you have a PI serve a subpeona, they need to know the address. Also, where is your evidence that someone has be hurt?
          • lawnchair_larry 6y ago
            Most other similar societies around the world do not allow this, yet PIs and process servers still exist.
            • giantg2 6y ago
              And how do they get the information? I would bet it's from the government...
          • liability 6y ago
            > How can they function without it? Work a little bit harder doing some old fashioned detective work instead of just paying the DMV for their records? It's a bit more work for them but I don't give a damn. Your suggestion that they'd be up shit creek without the DMV is just flat wrong.
            • giantg2 6y ago
              Even for investigations concerning vehicle ownership or theft? The DMV is the golden copy record holder for this information. It seems you have no background in this line of work.
  • rbecker 6y ago
    > This data doesn't seem that sensitive or difficult to obtain via other methods depending on the exact situation. A government should not be in the business of betraying its citizens to private parties, even if those parties have other means to accomplish their goals. Should I expect them to start selling school records and police interactions next?
    • giantg2 6y ago
      They already make it available. The school data is "anonymized" but like most anonymized data, it is possible in some cases to trace it back to individuals. They also publish some types of information. The police interaction records can be public record depending on the type of interaction/document. Departments using unencrypted comms broadcast your information when they call in your stop, which could be heard by anyone with a scanner. Also, how do you see this as a betrayal? It doesn't violate any laws nor any agreement with the individual. I would like to see better privacy laws. What they did is not shocking, not a betrayal, and not illegal. It would be nice if it was.
  • zamfi 6y ago
    I don’t know about commonly, but the law mentioned in the article you cite carved out an exception for private investigators, so... I’m not excited about license plate tracking either, but I have different expectations of the data I leak by going about town, compared with the complete personal information that I must give to a state agency (on top of paying them, on top of them receiving state funding) to have the privilege of going (driving, I guess) about town.
    • giantg2 6y ago
      The article has a clear bias towards vilifying the release of the data and misleads you with their use of the word "exception". They are not truly excepted from the law, rather they are on a list of approved actors/purposes. This section on PIs dictates that they can only access this information for DPPA approved reasons, and providing the location of a person without it being related to one of the approves uses (like that stalker) is illegal, so... They use machine learning with your license plate data so that they can predict where your home address, where you work, home of people you associate with, etc. What expectations do you have with the DMV? They didn't break any laws or privacy policies. Was it just an assumption you made?
      • giantg2 6y ago
        Why is this downvoted?
        • AdrianB1 6y ago
          Being allowed by the law to do something bad does not make it right, it just shows the law is bad. Selling private data is bad, no matter how legal it is, in most of the world. See GDPR as an example.
          • giantg2 6y ago
            Your argument assumes that selling data is bad. What supports your position? Edit: in the context of the CA DMV releasing data under the DPPA law.
  • rmrfstar 6y ago
    Read the Ebay stalking indictment. They were the B team with extremely limited operational capability. Now imagine they had any of the following, which are all for sale: * Real-time location from your cell provider * Real-time AirBnB booking * Real-time purchases from credit card companies * Real-time browsing records from your mobile ISP, home ISP, and behavioral advertising networks * Your complete prescription history from your pharmacy This is truly the stuff of nightmares. Part of the problem with government data sales is that it normalizes morally abhorrent practices that would not have been tolerated just a few years ago.
    • giantg2 6y ago
      Yep, and the transaction flows the other way too. The government also buys data from databrokers who get it from companies like Facebook, Google, and the data you mentioned.
      • rmrfstar 6y ago
        "In a subtle and deadly way, the dictator can dirty enough people up to make them all complicit in his rule, or I suppose her rule". C. Hitchens (2005). "Why Orwell Matters"
    • dikaio 6y ago
      Are we talking about China or United States?
  • travisoneill1 6y ago
    > This data doesn't seem that sensitive or difficult to obtain via other methods So it's ok because there's more than one there's more than one way to get the data?
    • giantg2 6y ago
      It's ok because there is no law or policies preventing it. The information is not that sensitive and is only provided to the parties authorized under the law and only for the purposes authorized under the law. I would like to see privacy laws overall change, but I don't see any issue with the DPPA law.
• bgorman 6y ago
  Living in California is really like living in a developing country with all the government corruption. On top of this nonsense California has among the highest DMV fees in the country
  • throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    The system makes much more sense if you assume the goal of government corruption is a wealth transfer to for the (politically connected subset of the) upper and middle classes and assume high DMV fees are a sin tax. The purpose of a system is what it does. I'm not saying that welfare for a subset of the people who can pay their own way and high sin taxes on essential services are good government policy (I personally think the combination is farcically regressive), just that the system makes sense if you take that viewpoint.
    • bgorman 6y ago
      I completely agree, government is primarily being used as a way to make transfer payments from one group of people to another these days.
      • olivermarks 6y ago
        i live in California and collect old (literally: project, mostly european) cars. The Cal DMV are a nightmare to deal with despite the vibrant local car culture which is slowly dying for all but the rich due to the DMV and other bureaucracy. There is a fee and a form every time you exhale, it's getting worse and you have wait hours to be charged at their offices.
        • throwaway0a5e 6y ago
          Maybe the goal is just to get people to skirt the law and accept the legal ambiguity hanging over their head that comes with that? They're basically saying "fine, be a small time car flipper if you want but know that you are giving the state the authority to destroy your life at any time on whim". This is what police states that want to have the power of arbitrary enforcement do. I'm not saying CA is there yet but if you look at asinine policies from all the various states and their level of compliance it seems pretty clear that huge swaths of "perfectly fine when done reasonably" normal and common behaviors are more or less impossible to do while being legally in the clear. At what point does an unenforceable at scale policy become a backhanded infringement upon people's property rights?
• joshuaheard 6y ago
  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.
  • eggsnbacon1 6y ago
    its easy to get this stuff. You can just pay some anonymous person on Fiverr that has access. Nobody should have access to this without a warrant, its a huge invasion of privacy.
    • zdragnar 6y ago
      Warrants aren't given out to several types of people with a legitimate reason to need the access. A better alternative is to have strict recording and auditing of requests and legal accountability for abusing the access (such as renting it out on fiverr).
  • btilly 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      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.
      • 6y ago
• jiveturkey 6y ago
  They are making $0, actually. The charge for the data is only recovering their cost to provide it. Probably there's slight room for error but their target is to break even.