Another Privacy Victory in Sacramento

After your support drove the California Legislature to send a letter rejecting the Department of Motor Vehicle's proposal to begin embedding biometric information—face and fingerprint scans—into drivers' licenses, a senate subcommittee voted yesterday to delete the facial scan proposal from the DMV's contract with drivers' license providers.

Senators Simitian and Lowell, who voted to delete the proposal, suggested that issues with broad ramifications like the use of biometrics in drivers' licenses should be brought to the attention of the entire Legislature, not shoehorned through using an expedited budget request. The Senators honed in on the DMV's failure to establish a need for facial scan information on licenses.

The fight is not yet over, however, as the issue will on the full budget conference agenda next week, and is likely to continue to appear in the coming months and years. Please continue to join us in opposing the continuing creep of privacy-invading technology in the battles ahead!

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Chris Conley is the Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow with the ACLU of Northern California.