Page 21 - NCISS Your Advocate September 2020

Private Investigators and Records Access Under Attack

In August and September members began alerting NCISS to disturbing articles attacking private investigators and access
to records – particularly state driving records. These are resurfaced from similar stories just before major state and
national elections in 2016 and 2018.

Headline #1 - Arizona DMV Sells Drivers' Photos and SSNs to Private Investigators
Headline #2 - The Loophole the DMV Uses to Sell Your Data to Private Investigators
Headline #3 - California DMV Is Selling Drivers' Data to Private Investigators
(previously Vermont in 2019, and in both 2016 and 2019 California with similar headlines and sources)

This means NCISS has to be prepared NOW and this will be the most important mission, and Hit the Hill event in 2021!
Until legislation is introduced, it cannot be tracked. However, our lobbyist in Washington DC and the media have given us
warnings as the outlook becomes more clear – and potentially very damaging to our professions.

YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT IS NEEDED NOW!!

Francie Koehler, Past President / Past Legislative Chair - Investigations
Few requestors are PIs and we have to expose that - there is anything from trucking companies to health care providers.
There are over 90,000 on our list. I think each state will need to do the same.

NCISS is looking for stories of positive results of getting DMV information -- like a recovered child, identity theft, locating
a birth parent, etc., -- and from willing clients, if possible. We did this several years ago when we were fighting access to
SSNs and DMV ANI access and we prevailed. Permission from the PI and client is needed to publish; or sanitize the
information.

If you are an authorized requestor of DMV information, you have signed an agreement that you will not provide or
transfer the information you receive from DMV to another individual. If you are caught getting DMV for a non-
requestor, it will put your access in jeopardy. Members who do not have DMV access may not be aware that for a
requestor to provide information to you is unlawful. Doing so is putting us all at risk.

This began with the death of Rebecca Shaeffer (TV actress: My Sister Sam) in 1989 as a result of her killer getting her
home address from a private investigator with access to DMV. Of course, at the time, the killer could have walked into
DMV himself and purchased her DMV record for $10, but private investigators have gone down in history as not
protecting Rebecca Shaeffer's privacy. The media and privacy advocate assault on our access to DMV is very serious. It
started on the East Coast and has gained momentum.

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