Are My Driving Records Online?
Criminal Law

Are My Driving Records Online?

With the ease of  information accessibility that the internet provided us in the modern era a lot of questions can come to mind. What information of yours is online? Are your addresses, favorite recipes, names of your friends and relatives, or even your driving records online? The short answer is that because of the Freedom of Information Act anything that is considered public information can be accessed by any citizen, but how would someone find your driving records?

Online Background Check Companies Likely Have Your Driving Records.

Many online background check companies specialize in locating public information from public information databases across the country. In many cases, these companies have access to hundreds or even thousands of public information databases. So, if you’ve gotten a ticket for any reason anywhere in the united states it’s very likely that they’ll have that information and will be able to provide it to anyone that’s looking for it.

Not only do these companies have access to your driving history, but they also have access to things like phone numbers, addresses, criminal records, arrest records, court records and sometimes even job records and financial records. Anything that you do that ends up in a public information database can and will be collected by these companies and will be accessible for anyone who wants to look into it.

The DMV.

The Department of Motor Vehicles operates differently from state to state, but in general to access driving records online you have to be checking for yourself. Most DMVs will only do mail correspondence with anyone other than the person attached to the driving record, and even then they have to have to be an official entity and have a good reason for requesting this information for their request to be approved. In some states any party can request this information, but there still needs to be a good reason to access your information this way.

Law Enforcement.

While it’s not really the internet, law enforcement has access to your driving records through their databases and can access them at any time for any reason. They’ll typically only pull this up at traffic stops, but there’s no rule saying that that’s the only time that they are allowed to pull up your records. They also have instant access to addresses, aliases, criminal records, parole records, and a lot more. It’s all on the computer that most cop cars have in their passenger seat, and that’s where they’ll run your plates. If they don’t have that computer in their car, then they just use their radio to contact dispatch and someone at dispatch can look the information up and get it back to them in a matter of minutes.

Your Information When you Need it Most.

Having your information available online is a double edged sword. If you ever need to find out what public records say about you, it’s easy enough to find that information. On the other hand, that information also exists for anyone else that may be curious about it. The reason that this information is available is because of an act that was passed to help with government transparency, and because of this all public information that the government collects is available to all citizens. Only time will tell how the public information retrieval industry will grow with time, and how much more of your information will be available online.

***SpyFly provides consumers affordable, immediate access to public record information. Federal laws prohibit businesses from using SpyFly’s service to make decisions about employment, insurance, consumer credit, tenant screening, or for any other purpose subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 USC 1681 et seq.***