Zero Privacy in the USA - DMVs Are Selling Your Data to Private Investigators
If it makes money, out goes the privacy. Forget about any government protection. They'll sell your private data to make a buck!
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43kxzq/dmvs-selling-data-private-investigators-making-millions-of-dollars?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_771950
You gave them your data in exchange for a driver’s license. DMVs are making tens of millions of dollars selling it, documents obtained by Motherboard show.
Departments of Motor Vehicles in states around the country are taking drivers' personal information and selling it to thousands of businesses, including private investigators who spy on people for a profit, Motherboard has learned. DMVs sell the data for an array of approved purposes, such as to insurance or tow companies, but some of them have sold to more nefarious businesses as well. Multiple states have made tens of millions of dollars a year selling data.
Motherboard has obtained hundreds of pages of documents from DMVs through public records requests that lay out the practice. Members of the public may not be aware that when they provide their name, address, and in some cases other personal information to the DMV for the purposes of getting a driver's license or registering a vehicle, the DMV often then turns around and offers that information for sale.
Many of the private investigators that DMVs have sold data to explicitly advertise that they will surveil spouses to see if they're cheating.
"You need to learn what they’ve been doing, when they’ve been doing it, who they’ve been doing it with and how long it has been going on. You need to see proof with your own eyes," reads the website of Integrity Investigations, one private investigator firm that buys data from DMVs.
"Under this MOU [memorandum of understanding], the Requesting Party will be provided, via remote electronic means, information pertaining to driver licenses and vehicles, including personal information authorized to be released," one agreement between a DMV and its clients reads. ... >>>
= new reply since forum marked as read
I think we may assume that there is some, but as far as personal information goes, there is a lot of data available online, it seems. I know that there are public records and so a lot is drawn from that.
When you look yourself up on Mylife, (which also calculates some sort of social score, what, China 
?) or just look at the databases that come up when you search your name. Just the surface data is rather interesting and you wonder who is aggregating it all and how. I mean, I can see having one's addresses, phone numbers and such, like a phone book, but there is a lot of other information freely available like who is related to you, your political affiliation, religion, ex spouses, friends, neighbors, your car, assumed income range and net worth, etc.
When you pay, they offer much more, though and I have not tried that. And yes, I know that these are used as background checks, but there seems to be no criteria about accessing them, so Mr. and Mrs. Stalker would approve.
Privacy? Well, I guess you can pay to have it scrubbed, but I wonder how many people realize that a lot of their data is readily available, including court records, etc?
Looks like another opt-out, but with a cash catch
Plus, with all that data out there somewhere, somebody can get it if they want it.
It is best not to have false notions about what is private and act accordingly, I guess.