Minnesota Cop Awarded $585K After Colleagues Snooped on Her DMV Data

guest · Jun 21, 2019

Minnesota Cop Awarded $585K After Colleagues Snooped on Her DMV Data
June 21, 2019
https://www.wired.com/story/minnesota-police-dmv-database-abuse/

In 2013, Amy Krekelberg received an unsettling notice from Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources: An employee had abused his access to a government driver’s license database and snooped on thousands of people in the state, mostly women. Krekelberg learned that she was one of them.

When Krekelberg asked for an audit of accesses to her DMV records, as allowed by Minnesota state law, she learned that her information—which would include things like her address, weight, height, and driver’s license pictures—had been viewed nearly 1,000 times since 2003, even though she was never under investigation by law enforcement.
She later learned that over 500 of those lookups were conducted by dozens of other cops.

“I think that the jury’s verdict shows that people do take privacy quite seriously and that they take women’s privacy seriously,” says Sarah St. Vincent, a surveillance and national security researcher at Human Rights Watch who attended the trial.
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Minnesota did have at least one rare accountability measure in place: It kept a log of when the DMV database was searched, and citizens have the right to request their file. Without that digital trail, Krekelberg likely wouldn’t have had the evidence to bring a case.
In many other states, similar protections don’t exist, even for more advanced technologies, like facial recognition software.

That makes it difficult for citizens to know when their information has been improperly accessed by the government, which happens not infrequently.
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mirimir · Jun 24, 2019

What's the NSA term for that? I don't remember. But from the Snowden dump, it was a thing. Ex girlfriends and wives, and whatever.

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Minnesota Cop Awarded $585K After Colleagues Snooped on Her DMV Data

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Minnesota Cop Awarded $585K After Colleagues Snooped on Her DMV Data

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