On Fri, 13 Jun 1997, Ray Arachelian wrote:
On Fri, 13 Jun 1997, William H. Geiger III wrote:
Any state issued permit is public record. This includes your drivers license and your auto registration.
Should it include your address and phone number?
It is imperative that in a democracy that the public know who and what the state is giving permits to (there whole other issue of wether the state should be issuing permits at all but that should be left to another thread).
One important distinction: If the state issues me a permit, they probably have a right to the information pertaining to the permit, e.g. they do need the make, model, year, and similar information about the car to issue a title or registration. If they are issuing state ID, they need to know that I am me in order to issue it. They don't need to place my mother's maiden name into the record although I think it appears on my birth certificate, and would cause problems since this is used as an informal password. My driver's license is a permit to drive, not a permit to be me. You can make a case for the database containing my age, but date of birth? Much of what appears is not necessary for the purpose stated. So are you making the case for having the state ask every detail about your life and being able to place it in the licensing database, or only answers to those questions relevant to issuing the license?