Did you now that personal information of millions of drivers in Tennessee has been sold to companies by a state agency?

The Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, which is over driver’s licenses, sells your information to four companies. The state then receives anywhere from $60,000 to nearly 80,000 a month for preparing the information for the companies. Social security numbers are never released in this process. The information comes from valid, revoked and suspended driver’s licenses.

The sale of personal information is legal under the Federal Driver Privacy Protection Act of 1994 and the Tennessee Uniform Motor Vehicle Records Disclosure Act.

The companies that get this information include Acxiom Corporation, Explore Information Services, Lexis Nexis, and Samba Holdings. Many of these companies provide insurance or risk-management services. What is interesting is Acxiom Corporation is the nation’s largest data broker, and holds 500 million consumer profiles. The company lists Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Pandora, Spotify, Roku, and Verizon Media as some of their partners.

If you look at the application for a Tennessee driver’s license, wedged in the middle of the form (see picture below) is a question asking for consent to release your personal information from your driver’s record. You can choose not give consent for release when it comes to an individual lookup or for mailing advertising but driver’s license holders in the state cannot block release for other reasons.