By Associated Press
Oklahoma City, OK – OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) The state of Oklahoma has collected at least $65 million in the past five years by selling personal information from motor vehicle records.
That's according to a copyrighted story published Sunday by The Oklahoman and the Tulsa World. The newspapers found that most of the records are bought online for $12.50 each, with $10 going to the state and a $2.50 processing fee going to the company that operates the state's Web site.
Wellon Poe, the chief legal counsel for the Department of Public Safety, says the biggest buyers of motor vehicle records are clearinghouses that sell the information to insurance companies and corporations.
While the state earns money selling records that include birth dates, some lawmakers and labor groups want to stop the release of government workers' birth dates under the Oklahoma Open Records Act. A bill that would do that is pending before the Legislature.
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Information from: Tulsa World, http://www.tulsaworld.com and The Oklahoman, http://www.newsok.com