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Compromise on sharing driver license data heads to governor

(Leah Hogsten | Tribune file photo) Legislators approved Wednesday a compromise to allow drivers to take individual action to stop years of sharing of their personal information with the Huntsman Cancer Institute.

  | March 12, 2020, 12:42 a.m.

Lawmakers passed a compromise Wednesday to allow Utahns to take individual acton to stop the yearslong practice of the Driver License Division giving their personal information without permission to the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute.

The House voted 67-5 to approve Senate amendments to HB183, and sent it to Gov. Gary Herbert for his consideration.

It comes after privacy advocates were upset that the institute for years collected extensive personal information from the Utah Driver License Division without the permission of residents involved. But researchers said stopping that might ruin its Utah Population Database, which has helped in some of the institute’s key discoveries

A compromise allows residents to make some extra effort to stop the sharing of their data, by going to a website to request it. Earlier proposals would have made that much easier, including at first requiring people to “opt in” to share their data, and another version that would have allowed people to “opt out” merely by checking a box on driver license applications.

Mary Beckerle, CEO of the institute, said in an earlier hearing, “I’m really proud that the Huntsman Cancer Institute has, by using this rich resource, discovered more inherited cancer gene susceptibility than any other institution on the face of the earth.”

Institute researchers said the information is used to identify which of many people with similar names have certain cancer diagnoses, and helps track them over time, ties them into genealogical data and helps determine whether environmental causes or such things as obesity may have led to their cancer.

But privacy advocate Ron Mortensen argued that individuals should decide whether their private data can be shared, and noted the data shared by the state was extensive in an era when data breaches have occurred.

He had complained, “They give the driver license number or ID card number; the first, middle and last name; sex; Social Security number; birthdate; height; weight; hair color; eye color; birthplace; mother’s maiden name; residence, plus the 20 previous residences and the dates they changed,” plus previous names used by the driver and when they changed.