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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"
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.
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?
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
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?
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.
The US already has a national ID system. What the Federal government can't do is make it mandatory to have a national ID, either directly or constructively through regulation. This matter has been to the Supreme Court many times over several decades and it is a matter of settled law that only the individual States have this authority.
It would require a Constitutional amendment to transfer this authority from the States to the Federal government. Congress can't just ignore the Constitution just because it is inconvenient.
Minor nit: it's not quite that clean cut. The Real ID Act already conditions federal recognition (TSA, federal buildings) on states meeting national standards, no amendment needed, just spending clause leverage. So the "no mandate" line is more like "no direct mandate."
Great, one more auth system to keep up at 3am. Central DB goes down, every DMV counter in the country grinds to a halt at once instead of just one state's mess.
Some of this is just the nature of American culture. Acceptance/rejection of federal authority is often irrational and leads to this patchwork. For instance, replace this statement with a national gun registry and watch people flip out.
Not without an equivalent of the GDPR. Our current identification systems (DL#/SSN) are currently being flagrantly abused by the surveillance industry. This needs to be stopped before we go making identification even stronger.
National ID systems aren't uniformly more secure just because they're centralized — Estonia's X-Road works well, but India's Aadhaar has had repeated large-scale data exposures. The design and oversight of the system matters more than whether it's federal or patchwork. Worth separating those questions before assuming consolidation helps.
Everyone's treating state DMV data as some sacred, siloed thing before this. It wasn't. Insurers, bounty hunters, repo men, and cops already pull DL data through third-party brokers daily. The "state vs federal" line is mostly theater at this point.
