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Thank you, non-big government that can be drowned in a bathtub! They've made $77,000,000 doing this, I do not know over what timespan. It was exposed when two sisters moved to FL from Idaho. One has been disabled her entire life, the other is her caregiver. Because of her disabilities, she has a digital footprint of zero. They went to DMV to get her an ID for Medicare, and within days she started getting junk mail, phone calls, and even had salesmen turning up at her door!
According to the article: "A state spokesperson said there's no way for drivers to opt-out if they don't want their personal information sold.
"The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles provides public records as legally required, in accordance with federal and state law, and as a necessary function in order for customers to efficiently conduct everyday business. The department has successfully instituted proactive security measures to ensure customer information is protected and any misuse of customer information will be pursued to the fullest extent of the law."
There's a HUGE EFFING DIFFERENCE between providing public records as required AND SELLING EVERYONE OUT TO MARKETING SLIME! That IS NOT providing public records AS LEGALLY REQUIRED! That spokesman and the head of MVD and probably most of the executives in that division should be strung up by their thumbs. Then again, so should Rick Scott and most of his cronies.
NEVER give the government your phone number unless you absolutely have to! This is especially true for voter registration, though with as much data being bought and sold, I don't know that it makes any difference. And if you have a PO Box, use that for any official correspondence.
As an example of voter registration data, last election cycle we started getting calls on our home line for ME for political surveys. I'm registered independent, and they were making big efforts to sway NM independents. We didn't have a home line when I registered to vote 14 years ago! So some data aggregator put my voter ID street address together with another record that had that phone number tied to this address, and *POOF* I start getting phone calls. We've since unplugged that phone because of the number of calls we've been getting.
https://www.wxyz.com/news/national/florida-is-selling-drivers-personal-information-to-private-companies-and-marketing-firms
According to the article: "A state spokesperson said there's no way for drivers to opt-out if they don't want their personal information sold.
"The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles provides public records as legally required, in accordance with federal and state law, and as a necessary function in order for customers to efficiently conduct everyday business. The department has successfully instituted proactive security measures to ensure customer information is protected and any misuse of customer information will be pursued to the fullest extent of the law."
There's a HUGE EFFING DIFFERENCE between providing public records as required AND SELLING EVERYONE OUT TO MARKETING SLIME! That IS NOT providing public records AS LEGALLY REQUIRED! That spokesman and the head of MVD and probably most of the executives in that division should be strung up by their thumbs. Then again, so should Rick Scott and most of his cronies.
NEVER give the government your phone number unless you absolutely have to! This is especially true for voter registration, though with as much data being bought and sold, I don't know that it makes any difference. And if you have a PO Box, use that for any official correspondence.
As an example of voter registration data, last election cycle we started getting calls on our home line for ME for political surveys. I'm registered independent, and they were making big efforts to sway NM independents. We didn't have a home line when I registered to vote 14 years ago! So some data aggregator put my voter ID street address together with another record that had that phone number tied to this address, and *POOF* I start getting phone calls. We've since unplugged that phone because of the number of calls we've been getting.
https://www.wxyz.com/news/national/florida-is-selling-drivers-personal-information-to-private-companies-and-marketing-firms
