California DMV Revokes Allstate's Access To Confidential Records
from the ouch dept
It can't be good if you're an insurance company and you no longer have access to the DMV's records on driver's licenses and vehicle registrations. However, the California DMV is accusing Allstate of doing all sorts of illegal things in connection with those records and has pulled the plug for the company. Allstate employees were apparently giving out confidential information, as well as making frequent unauthorized uses of the data - even to get information on family and friends. They also refused to allow the DMV to audit them, as is stated in their contract to access the info. While not as bad, this does remind me of the case a few months back of the credit report company guy who was feeding records to his friends for an identity theft scam. This is yet another reminder that putting all sorts of "private" data in a database, just makes it more likely that it will be abused.
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