![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/DMVEntrance.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe new state budget that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed includes $55 million for the DMV to build a data-sharing system, a program meant to bring the state in compliance with the federal REAL ID law.<\/p>\n
By Khari Johnson, Wendy Fry and Yue Stella Yu, CalMatters<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The entrance to a California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) office in Corte Madera. State officials have argued that the data sharing is needed to comply with the federal REAL ID Act, warning that if California does not participate, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security could refuse to accept state IDs at airports.\u00a0(Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Lawmakers earlier had refused to approve the data sharing plan<\/a> until protections were put in place<\/a> late last week.<\/p>\n The stakes are high for the more than 1 million immigrants who have driver\u2019s licenses. The system records the last five digits of a driver\u2019s Social Security number and uses the placeholder \u201c99999\u201d for people without one. Advocates fear that feeding that information into a national database could expose undocumented Californians to federal immigration enforcement and told CalMatters in April that such a plan amounts to \u201ca betrayal<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier this year, the governor\u2019s office told CalMatters that reporting on the dispute amounted to \u201cmanufacturing fear and panic with lies.\u201d<\/p>\n The new state budget includes $55 million, which the DMV will use to enable the sharing of California records with the State-to-State Verification Service and SPEX database run by the nonprofit American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA).<\/p>\n State officials have argued that the data sharing is needed to comply with the federal REAL ID Act, warning that if California does not participate, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security could refuse to accept state IDs at airports.<\/p>\n They say the system can only be queried for one record at a time using information supplied by an applicant and that bulk searches are not possible.<\/p>\n The new legislation includes additional measures to protect immigrants from the database being misused for federal immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n They include asking the attorney general to sue the nonprofit that runs the national database or participating states if they do not stick to the terms of the data sharing; requiring annual public reporting on data requests and any unusual patterns in usage; and directing the DMV to write a monitoring plan, due in draft by February 2027 and in final form by July 2027. It also directs the state auditor to assess compliance with data sharing guardrails starting in 2030.<\/p>\n \u201cThe established safeguards limit the information shared to the minimum necessary,\u201d said H.D. Palmer, spokesperson for Newsom\u2019s Department of Finance.<\/p>\n But some advocates say the oversight protections do not go far enough.<\/p>\n \u201cThe guardrails will not prevent federal or other state law enforcement from obtaining an order requiring (the state-to-state system) to retrieve and disclose data, including in bulk, and requiring (the system) not to disclose that fact,\u201d said Ed Hasbrouck with the civil liberties group the Identity Project.<\/p>\n Ronald Coleman Baeza, on behalf of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, thanked state lawmakers Monday for \u201censuring there are guardrails\u201d around the data sharing program but also urged lawmakers to require an audit before 2030.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are disappointed that Social Security numbers will continue to be shared, but we appreciate that there will be a monitoring plan, a stakeholder process in place, and also enforcement and an audit,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s definitely going to be more work to do to make sure that we do protect the information from Californians in the driver\u2019s license database system.\u201d<\/p>\n Representatives of the ACLU Cal Action and California Immigrant Policy Center similarly thanked lawmakers for adopting additional protections but expressed concern about the potential impact on the lives of undocumented immigrants of sharing sensitive data with an out-of-state entity.<\/p>\n Sen. Laura Richardson is a Democrat from Inglewood who questioned the data sharing plan earlier this year. In a Senate budget hearing Monday she voiced support for the data protections in the transportation bill. She also urged the state auditor to evaluate data sharing activity before 2030 \u201cgiven our vulnerability of having that data out there.\u201d<\/p>\n This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The new state budget that Gov. 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People wait in line outside of the DMV in Los Angeles. (Robyn Beck\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/DMVCM1.jpg\")
The DMV has asked for $55 million to share its driver license data to a national organization. Advocates say the move could endanger unauthorized immigrants. Department of Motor Vehicles parking lot in central Fresno on Dec. 13, 2022. (Larry Valenzuela for CalMatters)<\/p>\n