Texas DMV Sells Personal Information To Hundreds Of Companies; Drivers Not Allowed To Opt-Out

BTC - We've known for years that DMV's sell drivers license information. We've said for years that AAMVA sells it.  Selling Big Data motor-voter rolls is how Ross Perot got rich enough to run for a Outsider Party seat.  It's sad, but it's true.

c/o Tech Crunch 

"The Texas DMV claims its "top priority" is protecting drivers' information, but that hardly seems to be the case when it's pulling in $2.1 million a year selling it off. There are protections in place, but they are flimsy at best.

"The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles is the custodian of over 22 million currently registered vehicles in the state of Texas," Randy Elliston, Director of the Texas DMV, explained. "All of those records that are in our database, however, are protected under the Driver Privacy Protection Act."

Randy Elliston says the Driver Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) limits who can buy your information and what they can do with it.

It would be interesting to see what these "limits" are. The spreadsheet obtained by CBS 11 of Dallas, TX shows that 2,448 different entities purchased this information from the DMV last year. The purchasers listed range from towing companies to debt collectors to university parking lot patrols. Elliston states that the purchasing companies are not allowed to use the information for direct contact or advertising purposes." 

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