California legislature agrees to upload driver's licenses to national database

Sjeiti

That is fitting: "Error establishing a database connection"

johng

The article doesn't seem to go into any discussion or reasoning why Gavin Newsom would want to cooperate with this, seemingly against his own party? What are the downsides of not cooperating? What is his motivation or benefits for capitulating? Edit: Oh, ahhh I see: "Governor Gavin Newsom agreed to upload driver's license data to a national database primarily to comply with the Real ID Act of 2005 and avoid federal threats that would prevent California IDs from being accepted at airports and other federal facilities. This decision was finalized through a budget compromise with the state legislature following intense pressure from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security"

m-hodges

Roughly 9 years ago: https://neveragain.tech/

giantg2

The author is concerned that the feds could subpoena the data from the company that it's being submitted to. Wouldn't this same concern apply to the feds serving a subpoena to the state? Once the data is out there, it's out there. If one level of government has it, all the peer/higher levels will have access of they want it. It sounds like this database is the one that feeds license data to NCIC. The bigger question here is if we should be compiling and using data in the NCIC suchbas driver licenses and carry permits.

sandworm101

Article has bad title. "about all driver’s licenses and ID cards" This isnt just about drivers. That matters. Driving a car is not a fundamental right. But access to a state ID card, something you will need to access many services, probably is.

ck2

I thought because of RealID made just after 9/11 all drivers licenses had to be in federal database anyway? Not that it's acceptable but federal database of drivers licenses is smallest of privacy problems these days with federal overreach NSA never ever stopped collecting phone calls, they have been storing that data in larger and larger databases in the deserts. Now "ai" can make all that into some insane level of datamining

wat10000

We should switch to a national ID system and be done with it. The patchwork we have is getting more ridiculous by the day.

throwaway85825

The federal government could just scrape the data through the many data sharing programs. It's more political posturing that policy.

thraway3837

I'm not fully understanding what this means or how to react to it because I just don't know. Can someone with a deep understanding of this and what this means to us regular folks please explain?

belZaah

It’s a sign of a badly designed system. In a well-designed one (have seen one, have helped to improve several) the drivers license database only has a personal identifier and the class of license identifier. Which is private information for sure but it would hardly be an end of the world if the feds learned I have the right to operate a motorcycle. Perversely, this is the consequence of misguided privacy initiatives. Government agencies are discouraged or even forbidden from sharing data. Nobody has a reliable identifier. As a consequence, every single database out there will contain your name, dob, address and probably a photo. Oh, and because there’s no identity, they need to store a bunch more data to make sure you are not a fraudster. Also, in absence of a sensible electronic identity (because there’s no identity at all in the system), all of this data is used as a shared secret. Which makes it immediately commercially useful for identity theft, once obtained. And, of course, any of these giant piles of personal data can and will be breached in some way or another by both local and remote state actors. It’s all because “identifiers are bad” and “no sharing information”. Are you guys satisfied with the privacy situation yet?

nullc

How does this differ from what they already sell to LexisNexis?