Two Republican state lawmakers are resisting a plan by the state Department of Motor Vehicles to market drivers' records for sale.
The Republican American reports that Rep. Craig Miner of Litchfield and Sen. Robert Kane of Watertown recently voted against adding a $3 administrative fee to a $15 charge for obtaining driver histories from DMV.
The administrative fee will be used to support a new state web portal that businesses will use to obtain driver records online. The DMV also will impose an annual $100 subscription fee. The fees will apply to for-profit businesses.
About 1.5 million drivers' records are sold by the state annually to insurance companies at $15 each. Miner and Kane say they're concerned the agency will market the records to other businesses and worry what the purchasers will do with the personal information.
"The insurance companies come to DMV looking for this data already, so why do we need to market it?" Kane asked.
The planned marketing campaign is part of an initiative approved by the legislature and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in 2012. State agencies are authorized to enter into agreements with businesses and nonprofit organizations to make more government services and programs available electronically to the public.
Each state agency's website is to be improved with new interactive services previously unavailable.
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"I want a website that people can actually do business on and save themselves from having to go to an office to do some of those transactions," Malloy said.
