Illinois sues Trump admin over its demands for CDL database information

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and more than 20 officials from other states sued the Trump administration Thursday over its demand for access to state databases used by states to grant commercial drivers licenses known as CDLs.

The Trump administration has threatened to cut more than $10 million in federal funding to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators for not handing over the last five years of data from the Commercial Driver’s License Information System.

The database was created in the late 1980s to help states determine driver eligibility for CDLs across state lines.

The lawsuits claim the Trump administration is violating both state and federal law by creating its own version of the database without guardrails for the handling of sensitive information, such as social security numbers. The lawsuits claim the administration “has no legitimate need to take over this database of state records, and it failed to consult the states before making this drastic change.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The database includes drivers’ names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers and the name of states that provided the record, and is owned by the states that create them, according to the lawsuit. More than 17 million drivers’ information would be shared with the Trump administration if the court rules in favor of the feds.

Additionally, Illinois and California state law require written permission from each state for the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators to share information it has collected from the states, according to the lawsuit.

Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, whose department is in charge of maintaining data privacy compliance for Illinois records shared to the database, said the federal government was demanding an “unprecedented amount of state-owned, sensitive personal information” without “adequate legal justification.”

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