[ds]

Some things to note, unless the bill was modified from the version I read before being signed into law:

This doesnt apply to any information which is public record as a matter-of-fact.

So if you voted, your address and name is public record and can be used and displayed by these sites. If you got a DUI, your mugshot and arrest record may be public record and can be displayed. If you got into a custody battle and your court case was public, that can be displayed. And I guess that all makes sense in the end. If you got into a DUI, how does the government get to tell random website X that they are not allowed to say that you got into a DUI, especially when the information was public record.

So to be clear, if the peoplefinder style websites want to keep whitepages.com/user/john-smith online with an address, phone number and mugshot- They can tell you to pound sand and do so. This bill cant stop that.

Honestly, Theres alot of hype about this bill in general which is going to be... interesting... when people fail to understand what it can and cant be used for.

Additionally, this bill comes with a caveat that the sites can request proof you are living in california currently, via a license scan or some other method you get to now hand over to the data broker.

That said, in our research for https://redact.dev supporting these features from a pure API only interaction, is that most of the sites just delete you if you use their form. They dont want the headache of insane users threatening them and doing crazy shit because they dont delete their profile. And honestly the people who go through these removal processes are less than 1% of the stored data, so its mostly just a cost of doing business.

[oceanplexian]

> If you got a DUI, your mugshot and arrest record may be public record and can be displayed. If you got into a custody battle and your court case was public, that can be displayed.

The problem is you’re changing the social contract. 25 years ago a DUI wasn’t a life sentence; it wasn’t something someone could find a record for something you did when you were 19 on a website 40 years later.

Now, it’s a life sentence. It will impact your ability to get gainful employment for a lifetime. I’m sure people who have a hard-on for criminal justice love this, but I think it’s unfair and detrimental to a healthy society.

[roenxi]

DUI can also be a life sentence because you kill someone or die. I know a dude who will never walk again. He has employment problems whether or not his employer knows why he is crippled [0]. We're grateful that he hurt himself and not some bystander. This is a major infraction.

I have some sympathy for anyone discriminated against for something they did long ago but the solution here is to educate HR departments to only use relevant criteria when assessing candidates. Or, in other words, reset the social contract a little.

[0] Bonus rant: this fact is why I've always been consistently vocal that the people trying to put so much liability on self-driving vehicle operators that it'll slow down deployment need to take a long hard look at themselves. We need to get humans away from the wheel ASAP and if a couple of people die on the way there those are lives better spent than what we do now.

[glimshe]

A friend of mine lost his daughter to a DUI driver. DUI needs to have dire consequences, especially if involved in killing/disabling others.

However, we should use the justice system to deliver the right punishment instead of condemning people to an extrajudicial, de facto life sentence in all cases. The US is too liberal with making information public, while in most countries it's almost impossible to know who had a DUI in the past.

[stetrain]

There is also a huge distinction to be made between being arrested for something and being convicted of it.

Any cop can arrest you for DUI, with or without evidence. You get a mugshot, a public record, and a booking charge of "DUI".

Whether you get immediately released with charges dropped, or have to fight it in court and are later declared innocent or have the charges dropped, that initial public record and mugshot next to the words "DUI" now lives forever in various public archives.

[robertlagrant]

> DUI can also be a life sentence because you kill someone or die

This doesn't require your record being kept forever, though. You're already dead or guilty.

> the solution here is to educate HR departments to only use relevant criteria when assessing candidates

This won't work. You don't decide what's relevant.

[asah]

no need to argue:

IN ADDITION to removal attempts, we SHOULD ALSO influence (regulation, societal pressure, etc) how HR/etc departments use data they find online about a person.

[ghaff]

In general, there's a lot of information that has been considered public as a matter of law (often for good reasons) for a long time. Making this information available on the web rather than in some dusty county clerk's office arguably changed things. But we've mostly shrugged and let the information remain public even if it's just a click away (or at least a nominal background check payment away).

[breadwinner]

A few years ago, I unregistered to vote, because some websites make your name, address, and age public if you're registered to vote. So I no longer vote. My privacy is more important than my ability to vote.

[sokoloff]

As an employer, I’ve had many hundreds of people work in my group over the years, meaning I’ve had scores of people with DUIs.

I run a software shop, not a trucking company or airline. Whether you had a settled DUI in your past doesn’t change your ability to write code now, which is what I’m hiring you for.

Why would I care about an old DUI?

Beats me; I don’t.

[mschuster91]

Thing is, you as a small shop don't care... but large corporations, they get so many applications that they use background screening to filter down the load to something that their HR can handle, and in some cases (especially in government, aeronautics and medical) client contracts require regular checks of employees.

[sokoloff]

If they’re already filtering on things unrelated to the job, they could just as well throw out whatever percentage of applications was needed to get down to a load their HR could handle.

[bryanrasmussen]

the things unrelated to the job are things they can then say are related to moral character and make you a better hire overall.

Also any prior arrest record - DUI for example - can affect your permissions to work on projects with high security clearances and thus a factor that might not be relevant to small shop would at any rate be potentially relevant to large corporations who are the ones getting government contracts that require high security clearances.

[pseg134]

It fine to think that way. The problem is restricting other peoples right to free association if they do not want to hire them . Having a DUI is not a protected class.

[light_hue_1]

We are literally not changing the social contract at all.

A DUI is so serious it's impossible to expunge in most states. Yes, it is a life sentence in the sense. It will always come up again.

[stetrain]

The problem is that an arrest and a mugshot is not a conviction.

The record of the former is still public even if the charges get dropped or the arrest was unlawful. And will appear on web searches or be surfaced by all of the background checkers that HR uses.

[ferfumarma]

You raise a great point. But honestly: if you got a DUI in your youth you deserve to answer for it. It might or might not keep you from getting a job 10 years later, but you put people's lives in danger. If it does affect you: too bad. Drunk driving has always been a life sentence for its victims.

I would find your argument more compelling with a different example like shoplifting or vandalism: still deeply anti social, but not killing innocent people who are just going about their business.

[wayfinder]

Once you meet enough people you realize DUI has nothing to do with driving ability.

One of the most to-the-book buddies I know is also the worst driver I know. He once had a gnarly accident where he flipped his car a few times because he had to look at his GPS briefly. I hate sitting in his car. He insists on always being the driver too because you can tell he finds driving overwhelming but thinks he’s actually good at it. Lol.

I have another buddy who does have a past DUI. He’s extremely coordinated and I have never felt unsafe in his car.

At the end of the day, if I had to choose someone to suspend their license forever, it would be my first buddy. I don’t care if he has a clean record. He simply was not gifted hand-eye coordination and is already a menace while sober.

[ryandrake]

To be pedantic, DUI by itself is not killing anyone, it's the crashing that tends to do the killing. You don't know the circumstances behind someone's DUI conviction, which could range from being drunk plowing into a bus load of school kids to being drunk in your parked, non-running car without the keys. There are many ways a determined and creative cop + justice system can successfully convict one for DUI that don't involve harm to anyone.

[Xylakant]

I could conceivably get a DUI conviction for riding my bike sufficiently drunk here in Germany.

[vinckr]

You can get a DUI in Germany for crossing a red light on foot while drunk - even lose your license.

But luckily criminal records are not public in Germany so its not a life sentence.

[hef19898]

I know people who lost their liscense for riding their bikes while drunk. Rightfully so, luckily in my younger years I was never cought the few times I did so myself.

[BestGuess]

problem is that stance is like a vicious cycle. Can't get worthwhile employment screws everything from your family to your social life, worse if you can't drive anymore too, and all that is right back into why those people would be alcoholics or using other drugs and stuff in the first place.

my thing is I'm all for justice but not justice that creates more of the same problem in others or the same people giving them even more reason to give up with, well, it's like branding people on the forehead. Why be surprised when the outcast keeps doing outcast stuff when they're never allowed to be anything but an outcast? it's like if society shot itself in the foot then is outraged demanding to know who shot it in the foot.

tryin to say it feels good but just feelin good don't fix nothin

[deprecative]

What the other person seems to want is revenge or some arbitrary punitive action against someone, perhaps decades, after they've already been through the legal system and answered for their actions.

[BestGuess]

seems to me like that's what we've got right now sadly

[watwut]

The fine or minor jail time and your license being taken for period of time is answering for that driving under influence.

No reason to continue punishing people forever, that is destructive for society. This ideology of as large punishment as possible is something I find off-putting.

[kiba]

Drunk driving is a systematic problem, caused by drinking culture and car dependency.

A DUI conviction is something you could judge someone personally, but causes mayhem on a societal level.

[lazide]

And yet, most people somehow never get DUIs. Weird, isn’t it?

[kiba]

If it was easy to live in a society without drunk driving, then it would be done. Saying that some people don't get a DUI conviction is tantamount tolerating the conditions our society is in.

[lazide]

For some reason, I only ever hear this argument from folks with DUIs.

Near as I can tell, approximately 1% of licensed drivers get arrested for DUI a year, and most have repeat offenses.

That doesn’t strike me as any more of a society wide ‘impossible’ issue than anything else?

One thing I have noticed though - problem drinkers are amazing at making it always someone else’s fault.

[wierd-eye-loser]

Hey look a fascist cunt. You go to jail and pay fees. That is your sentence cunt

[willy_k]

Go back to Reddit please

[pyuser583]

I’m not confident about companies removing data for those outside California.

If someone requests to remove data associated with an email or username, they probably will.

But if the law says you can demand to have any data associated with your real identity removed - that requires verifying your real identity.

Otherwise some troll will demand data be deleted for another person.

[Rumudiez]

> Otherwise some troll will demand data be deleted for another person.

Would that be a bad thing, though? I don’t personally value what these sites do and can’t imagine a healthy person who does. It could be better for everyone to do away with them

[brvsft]

Yes, it would be a bad thing to have someone randomly delete your data from a site you depend on or enjoy using.

[Rumudiez]

Like whitepages.com? We’re talking about websites where you don’t have an account and they just republish info from public records and/or data brokers, not Facebook

[Hnrobert42]

No. Like Equifax when you are applying for a home loan.

[Rumudiez]

Right, because an Equifax data breach has never negatively affected anyone

[newman314]

If you know the magic incantation to remove data from BlockShopper, I'm quite sure lots of folks would be interested in knowing how to do so.

[ds]

It will vary state by state.

In florida you can force their hand if you are a veteran or in one of a few specialized jobs. http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?mode=View%20St...

In other states, usually you can do something if you show you are a victim of 'fraud' or abuse. Fraud might be easy to prove, if someone ever stole your password or something

[therockspush]

Used to be, in the good old days, getting yourself off lexisnexis did a good chunk of the heavy lifting out of these data pits.

For anyone who doesn't know what BlockShopper does, what does it do?

[newman314]

See https://blog.incogni.com/blockshopper-opt-out/

It is nigh impossible to remove data from them.

[Beldin]

> So if you voted, your address and name is public record

As someone not from the USA: what the actual F?!

edit labster's sibling comment points out that there are actually laws on how public voter data is. So it is not nearly as dire as the quoted sentence made it seem.

[ghaff]

There are laws--which vary by state--on how and by whom and for what purpose voter registration data can be requested. But, as a general statement, it's not wrong to say that the name and address of registered voters are often a matter of public record though not their vote of course. It's certainly not correct to say that, in general, no one besides the government can access them.

https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/access-to-and-u...

[hef19898]

It seems voting in the US is a lot less secret and anonymous then elsewhere. All people do in Germany is scratching your name off of the voter list at your polling station to avoid someone else voting again in your name.

The list of names so is not public or anything special, it is just a list names and adresses pulled from the respective resident list maintained by your cities / towns / communities authorities anyway.

[strken]

I think it's fairly common to make the electoral roll available in some form or other. In Australia, for example, you can walk into the National Library of Australia and read federal electoral rolls dating back to 1903.

The USA goes unusually far with this, but it's a matter of degree and it doesn't surprise me.

[water-your-self]

>And honestly the people who go through these removal processes are less than 1% of the stored data, so its mostly just a cost of doing business.

Sounds like a gap in the market

[labster]

Voter data is already protected by California law; it’s already a crime to disseminate voter registration information for non-political purposes.

Please stop with this FUD that is just another voter suppression tactic.

[ghaff]

California seems to be stricter than many states but it's not just political purposes (which I'm not sure how that is "better" anyway):

In California:

Candidates, parties, ballot measure committees, and to any person for election, scholarly, journalistic, or political purposes, or for governmental purposes, as determined by the Secretary of State. All voter information is confidential except for those listed above that may request lists.

https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/access-to-and-u...

[astura]

So you can disseminate voter registration information for political purposes?

[robertlagrant]

> that is just another voter suppression tactic

It's really, really not.

[BLanen]

> If you got into a DUI, how does the government get to tell random website X that they are not allowed to say that you got into a DUI, especially when the information was public record.

Like every other countries in the world have?

> how does the government get to tell random website X that they are not allowed to say that you got into a DUI

By saying you can't publish the information and suing if people do? It's not perfect but its very easy for governments to not make it show up in google so employers won't know, like it's a right in almost every developed country.

Americans seem unable to imagine anything else than what is.

[ds]

We have a very strong freedom of speech in this country, to the point its kinda insane. (See the citizens united ruling for instance)

So, yes. We cant imagine it because basically the government has extremely, extremely limited ability to control the speech of corporations or people- Essentially limited to yelling 'fire' in a crowded theatre. Aside from that, People and corporations are able to say whatever they want. They can still be held liable for defamation, breaking contracts, etc.. but you cant legislate the right away for people to say things.