Department of Motor Vehicles: records: inspection and sale.

Existing law authorizes the Department of Motor Vehicles to permit the inspection or sale of information from its records concerning the registration of any vehicle or information from its files of driver's licenses, with specified limitations, at a charge sufficient to pay at least the actual cost to the department for providing the inspection or sale of the information. This bill would repeal that provision and, instead, would prohibit the department from selling or permitting the inspection of vehicle registration and driver's license information. The bill would exempt from that prohibition inspection by a law enforcement officer, inspection pursuant to a court order, and specified statistical information. Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. The bill would make legislative findings to that effect.