Texas sells your Driver's License data

[Winehole23]

The Watchdog’s revelation last week that personal information on 27 million past and present Texas driver’s license holders is for sale on the dark web leaves many Texan incensed.

Texas state government sells its data sets to outside parties who are not allowed to use them for marketing purposes. But some of these companies then re-sell to companies who do use it to sell and annoy us.

A Denver company, Vertafore, works with the insurance industry and accepts blame for the data heist. A statement said it was caused by “human error.”

The FBI and the Texas Attorney General’s office are investigating.


If you get a boatload of calls, for example, like I do, trying to sell me an extended car warranty, you can thank the state.

In the breach, stolen information includes your name, address, date of birth, driver’s license number, VIN,make, model, color and year of car and the lending ins ution to whom you make car payments.

Some other states do not sell this data, but Texas does. State lawmakers could change the law in their 2021 session.

I first reported this in 2015 when I learned that several state government departments sell information to outsiders. In an open records request that year, I learned that in 2014 the Department of Motor Vehicles earned $2.4 million in sales.

This year, CBS 11/KTVT reporter Brian New updated those numbers. DMV made more than $3 million in 2019 selling drivers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and VIN information, he reported.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watc...er-government/

[Winehole23]

One way to see how loosey-goosey Texas is with our information is on the paid subscription lookup site, PublicData.com.


Years ago, there were multiple states listed where you could quickly look up a person’s driver’s license information. Now there’s only Florida and Texas. The other 48 now have higher standards of privacy.

Same goes for vehicle information. Only five states are listed for searching, but four are marked “[OLD].” The fifth is up to date and active. That’s us.


If you get unwanted spam email, postal mail or phone calls and wonder how they got your information, Thank you state leaders.


When it comes to cheap and easy data distribution that violates our privacy, we’re number oneoften enough it’s because of our state’s lax laws.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watc...ler-government

[DMC]

That's ed

Companies "lose" your data all the time, then try to hook you up with lifelock. It's a scam.

[coyotes_geek]

No worries, Ken Paxton is on the case!