WHY ARE WE FIGHTING?
December 17, 2014 at 9:38 AM
AWCA Auto Salvage & Recycling in Gulf Breeze is fighting a little known Florida law that requires secondhand dealers (anyone who buys stuff from the public) to turn over their customer’s personal information to the police every day. To make matters worse, Santa Rosa County demands that we comply by turning this data over to a commercially owned and operated website instead of directly to the police.
This website LEADSONLINE.COM is a massive online nationwide database, held and maintained by a for-profit company that makes money by charging police departments for access to the database. The police then spend your tax dollars on a subscription to access the site. Now here’s a little information on what’s wrong with this picture (aside from them using your tax dollars to violate your Fourth Amendment rights):
Every time you access the Leadsonline.com home screen you are greeted by a success story, one of however many that cycle through on repeat (suggesting that their aren’t actually as many success stories as the website would like you to believe). These success stories tell the heartwarming tale of crimes being solved thanks to police access to the data in the leadsonline database. Some item with a serial number was inevitably involved, and through the tracking of this item police are able to nail a suspect in some robbery or crime.
Now obviously we all want crimes solved so that “theoretically” there will be fewer criminals and thereby less crime on our streets. But here’s the catch: the police could accomplish the SAME EXACT results without companies putting all of their customer’s personal information on the site.
The crimes they solve are almost always a case of identifying an item that has a serial number in the leads database. Once they get a hit they have INSTANT access to the suspect’s personal information. That’s great, but that means any potential hackers also have access to that same personal information. Driver’s licenses, home addresses, vehicle information, phone numbers, signatures, and even thumbprints are all up for grabs in this massive database!
Now no one is blind to what’s going on in the news. Everyone in America knows the words “hacker”, “data breach”, and “Identity Theft”. In 2014 alone, we’ve already had 1 million customer records stolen from LexisNexis, 4 million from UPS, 5 million from Gmail, 56 million from Home Depot, 70 million from Target, 76 million from JP Morgan, and 145 million from EBay!
That’s 357 million records hacked from major companies this year! That number is actually low because I’m only citing the most well known companies. There are even more cases of hacking and plenty others that have “lost” sensitive data (the VA laptops that were lost in past years) or had accidental data leaks (like Apple in 2013).
Thankfully most of these compromised records only involved passwords and user information, but of course there have been financial, medical, and sensitive data lost as well.
Now just imagine if Leadsonline were to become a victim to the numerous types of data loss or theft. Their database holds EVERYTHING that a criminal needs to steal someone’s identity. We’re talking a photocopy of their driver’s license, their vehicle information, their signature, and their THUMBPRINT for goodness sake! What’s your financial information compared to your thumbprint? At least finances are insured.
All this risk and Santa Rosa County and Leadsonline are encouraging businesses to subject their customers to these dangers without their consent or even their KNOWLEDGE! As a Deputy pointed out on the Leadsonline marketing material they brought us (as “proof” that Leadsonline is secure), the Frequently Asked Question “Will my customers be aware that I am uploading?” is replied to by Leadsonline with “No – the system does nothing to alert your customers to the manner in which you meet local reporting requirements”.
Granted that’s not an outright call to deceive your customers, but there is certainly no encouragement to disclose what you’re doing with their private information. Governments entities large and small across this great nation are constantly reassuring you that they are determined to protect your right to privacy and yet here they are…demanding we subject your identity to theft online without a warrant.
Now here’s a novel idea. Like I said, the same results could be achieved without risking the identity theft of millions of Americans. Simply omit the personal information! But…but…but…we need it to identify the criminal, they say. Yes you do, but since we put all the other information on leads you know where and when the item was sold and all police have to do is make a quick call/email/drive to the company in question and request the original purchase form.
See? The same exact results could be had without endangering the welfare of innocent customer’s identities. Doesn’t that seem like a fair trade for the minor trouble of police doing a little legwork after using leads to point them in the right direction?
We’re not fighting just to point out the problems with the law and demand the state and county to solve them, we’re fighting for the chance to help remold the laws to reflect the moral and ethical responsibility that we as a business and our county and state as lawmaking entities owe the citizens, a responsibility that we take seriously enough to stake our business and the owner’s incarceration on.
That’s right. We are facing the loss of our business and the owner is facing 5 years in prison for standing up against a law that violates customer’s Fourth Amendment rights to privacy without reasonable cause or warrant, all because an unlawful law wants to sacrifice your right to privacy to make their job easier. But as I mentioned, there is another way, one that makes their job easier while still protecting your privacy. Now it’s time to see if the legal system agrees with us that your Fourth Amendment right to privacy doesn’t have to be sacrificed to catch crooks!
AWCA Auto Salvage & Recycling
AWCA.shutterfly.com
850-934-1642
They must have had a bunch or RR Track , but that would be the RR's property.
