NH Photo ID Flap Reawakens DMer Motor List Issue

Direct marketing industry access to motor vehicle data has been called into question once again following last week’s disclosure that Nashua, NH-based Image Data LLC received nearly $1.5 million and technical assistance from the Secret Service to develop a national database of driver’s license photos.

The Florida branch of the American Civil Liberties Union is leading a fight to have state laws permitting driver’s license photos and other personal information to be sold to marketers and others.

At the same time, the national ACLU said it wants Congress to “strengthen the loophole-ridden 1994 Driver’s Privacy Protection Act” which it says “is failing to prevent states from selling or disclosing personal information about drivers without their consent.”

The ACLU statement did not mention that states were required by the law to offer licensed drivers and vehicle owners a chance to opt out from having any information about them, including their pictures, from being provided to third parties.

There was no immediate comment from the Direct Marketing Association which is reviewing the situation. Six years ago the organization spearheaded the industry’s drive for continued access to state motor vehicle records, a move the ACLU and other privacy groups opposed.

Marty Abrams, information policy vice president for Experian, a data collection firm, saw the ACLU making more out of the situation than really exists. “I’m not sure how a digital picture can end up being an invasion of privacy,” he said while chiding privacy organizations to show how and why “these tools that are being developed to prevent fraud should not go forward.”

In contrast, Privacy Journal publisher Robert Ellis Smith said he saw “nothing nefarious at all” in the Secret Service’s contract with the Nashua, NH, firm to develop that database.

Noting that “privacy people are saying that the Secret Service wants that data for law enforcement,” Ellis pointed out that by law the Secret Service has the responsibility to investigate credit card fraud.

Image Data was described by spokeswoman Lorna Christie as “an identity fraud prevention company” which uses public information to support “True ID,” a program that provides qualified business subscribers with images of a customer during the course of a transaction so the business can verify the customer’s identification by the image.

“We do not resell the data,” she said.