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California DMV Puts 42 Million Car Titles On Blockchain To Fight Fraud (reuters.com) 59

Posted by BeauHD from the first-of-its-kind dept.
California's DMV has digitized 42 million car titles using blockchain technology to detect fraud and streamline the title transfer process, enabling residents to claim vehicle titles through a mobile app -- the first such initiative in the U.S. The project is a collaboration with tech company Oxhead Alpha on Ava Labs' Avalanche blockchain. Reuters reports: Digitizing car titles will reduce the need for in-person DMV visits and the blockchain technology will also function as a deterrent against lien fraud. Blockchain technology can help detect lien fraud by creating a transparent and unalterable record of property ownership, making it difficult for fraudulent activity to go unnoticed. California residents will be able to access their digital car titles starting early next year as the DMV builds out the app and infrastructure for consumer access.
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California DMV Puts 42 Million Car Titles On Blockchain To Fight Fraud More

California DMV Puts 42 Million Car Titles On Blockchain To Fight Fraud

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  • The government should put most of what it does into some kind of public ledger to ensure transparency. That we have to request information that should be freely available to us is a travesty.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Seven Spirals ( 4924941 )
      That we FOIA request things like health & safety information or records on the JFK assassination (despite the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 mandating 100% of these records be released by 2017). FOIA requests for JFK related documents have been denied to Larry Schnapf, a New York-based lawyer and professor. They've been denied to Jefferson Morley, a journalist and author on the subject. They've been denied to David Talbot of Salon.com and also to The National Security Archive at George
    • This will help a lot when the next CrowdStrike happens and knocks everything out.
    • If something is transparent you can't see it. Don't people know what words mean anymore?

    • The government should put most of what it does into some kind of public ledger to ensure transparency. That we have to request information that should be freely available to us is a travesty.

      Is blockchain useful if there isn’t a ledger with some other entity, public or otherwise?

  • Potentially sensible (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <gameboyrmh@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday July 30, 2024 @06:06PM (#64668250) Journal

    Notary services are one of the few potentially sensible uses of blockchain technology vs. an ordinary database.

    • Re:Potentially sensible (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Tuesday July 30, 2024 @06:18PM (#64668292) Homepage
      A notary is registered to then stamp and sign a document as proof that the signature actually belongs to those named on the document. The whole point is to have physical proof regardless of how digital the document becomes.

      Physical presence with a physical witnessing of the signing along with proof of who you are is never going to become a digital-only thing while keeping the security of notarization. It just isn't.

      Anything important in your life should be on a physical document. Especially so when government is involved. At least it is important to me, but if you don't care that ownership can be changed by a bit flip then sure go all in on the stupidity train.

      • Paper can be lost or destroyed and it's relatively difficult to make backups of, arguably impossible to back up the original. And while it's very difficult to forge a notarized paper document or erase historical records of one, with a blockchain it can be made completely impossible. It doesn't mean you can't have paper copies either.

      • Notaries die.

        More importantly, notaries can be murdered.

        Notaries do not provide the level of surety you seem to think they do.

        • Re: Potentially sensible (Score:4, Interesting)

          by ksw_92 ( 5249207 ) on Tuesday July 30, 2024 @07:37PM (#64668466)

          Notaries don't provide security, they provide attestation that a person executing a document is who they say they are. It's not a perfect attestation but good enough for most litigation.

          If we ever got to a place where people had their own signing certificates, we could make blockchain provide better integrity AND attestation for legal documents. Two out of the three legs of CIA would be covered, at least. The problem is the generation and management of such a PKI. I don't want my government issuing and controlling my signing cert. I'd rather generate my own self-signed cert and register the public key with them. That way, I'm in control of my signature. If I had a means to keep a secure history of my self-signed certs and private keys, I could prove my historical identity in court on my own.

          • A dead notary proves nothing
              - Voltaire

          • The notary system depends upon the attestation of people who are conscientious & honest. You know that in the rest of the world, US notaries are a joke, right?

            I suspect that a digitally signed, publicly accessible database will work just as well as blockchain at a fraction of the cost. But I hear that finding a useful, appropriate application for blockchain is only 10 years away!

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mjwx ( 966435 )

            Notaries don't provide security, they provide attestation that a person executing a document is who they say they are. It's not a perfect attestation but good enough for most litigation.

            This, a notary will attest "this is a true and genuine photograph of John Smith" on the back of John Smith's passport photo, they can witness contracts and other documents. They're a point in time service, not a permanent record.

            As for keeping a record of who is the owner and/or registered keeper of a car, not sure why the US has so much of a problem with this where almost every other developed and most developing countries have managed to get this sorted decades ago. The last time I had to go into a gov

      • Remote online notary is a thing, has been for a few years in individual states and legislation has passed as of last year on the national level. No more in physical in person notary in quite a few circumstances and it'll become even more prolific. In another 10-20 years in person signing will be the rarity vs the norm.

        https://www.congress.gov/bill/... [congress.gov]

  • I don't get it. (Score:3)

    by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Tuesday July 30, 2024 @06:08PM (#64668254) Homepage
    A state issues a title of car ownership. You have proof, the state has proof. Anyone can ask the State: who owns the car? What more do you need.
    Oh sorry, forgot about leasing and financing where things get confusing and ugly since you don't really 'own' the car. But let's make is worse:

    Some middleman now holds all the information - what could possibly go wrong? It isn't a public chain. Haha they have an app! We're saved!

    • I'm not at all sure how putting this data on a blockchain helps, but the summary specifically mentions lien fraud.

      A car has a lien placed on it usually as a way to lay claim to the value of the vehicle due to unpaid expenses, e.g. a car loan, or un/underpaid repair work. Someone goes to sell you that car without telling you that a third party has a lien on it and therefore legal right to claim it. Some time later, the lien holder comes around to collect, and they can repossess the car you thought you purcha

      • A car has a lien placed on it usually as a way to lay claim to the value of the vehicle due to unpaid expenses, e.g. a car loan, or un/underpaid repair work.

        This doesn't need a blockchain though, it just needs a central database which the DMV already has to include the status of any lien. This sounds again like a complex solution to a simple problem.

        • Show us all how you didn't read my entire post without explicitly admitting it...

          =Smidge=

          • I did read it. You said you're not sure how it mitigates it. My answer is it doesn't. It's not the problem that blockchain "solves".

            Why do you think I'm disagreeing with you? Take a xanax and chill.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • No, he said he's not sure how blockchain mitigates it. My answer is that it doesn't.

            Please try and understand how English words fit together to form sentences.

        • It sounds to me as though blockchain was added as a security measure. Maybe it needs to be there, maybe not. Maybe it adds value to the system, maybe it doesn't. The buried lead here is that the whole process was made easier by providing an app which means that people don't need to physically visit the DMV.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • It's the DMV. They can't even correct my address. They took it on their own to change the town that I live in to the point where the USPS rejects my registration mail.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by galabar ( 518411 )
      Nothing can go wrong *for them*. For us, lots...
  • I assume the government has a history of ownership in their database? I supposed blockchain could be helpful if someone in the government could fiddle with the data. Otherwise, how does it help?

    • There are lots of good reasons, most notably that you can transfer title without involving the government.

      • "without involving the government"

        It's on a government owned and operated blockchain. They are very much still involved.

        Also this seems ripe for fraud. What protections are there to prevent someone from just transferring ownership of your car to them? I have to assume there's SOMETHING but the article doesn't really give details. I presume you have to log in and authenticate with the government website/app but that's not nearly as secure as having to submit physical paperwork to a physical person who physic

        • Well, without details we don't know how they are going to program it. Blockchain smart contracts can do interesting things to get rid of middlemen, and blockchains can provide durable backups for paperwork that can be lost or stolen. Most importantly, they provide a place for things like accidents to be registered publicly with the title.

          • > Blockchain smart contracts can do interesting things to get rid of middlemen

            They really can't though. If anything we now have a private company providing services for the government, so that's actually an extra layer of middlemen. Chances are not zero that the company that got the contract to implement and operate the blockchain service is also contracting out parts of the operation to fourth parties. It's fucking middlemen all the way down because that's how capitalism works. Just because you don't di

      • No, you most definitely can't. When you transfer the title, you are expected to pay money. A transfer fee as well as a sales tax.

    • because saying "blockchain" in a headline makes you feel some type of way....

      The real headline is "California DMV is now offering an app to make title transfers more convenient for people and to fight fraud"

      The fact that there is "blockchain" technology baked in to the system is incidental.

  • Step Zero Question (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lord Grey ( 463613 ) on Tuesday July 30, 2024 @06:56PM (#64668400)
    Are we sure that the 42M records now on the blockchain are accurate? Because if they are not, and people start trusting that ledger, things could get ugly.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      As accurate as the DMV's records... which would take precedence and be the definitive source until correct anyway, blockchain or not.

      Why would it be inherently more error-prone than the DMV's previous processes?

  • party like it's 1999 (Score:3)

    by thesjaakspoiler ( 4782965 ) on Tuesday July 30, 2024 @07:29PM (#64668450)

    The California DMV finally catching up on the blockchain hype.

  • This can't possibly work unless it is done in a sustainable way that fights climate change and promotes equity through transparency and responsible use of AI.
    It will also cost 26 billion dollars.
  • all this time just to implement that? many places in the world have solved this problem decades ago, you don't need a block chain to protect records and create an immutable audit trail.

  • Doesn't this mean that all of the car titles will now be publicly available? The Delaware company's list is going to be very busy responding to CA queries after they do this.

  • Wrong solution (Score:5, Informative)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2024 @03:06AM (#64668914)

    Blockchains would have benefits for situations where there's no central authority for trust. The DMV is the central authority for trust here. Anything they could solve with a blockchain they could also solve simply updating their own database.

    • This is particularly scary. I have no idea what is going on at California DMV. But I've lived in NJ, OH, and FL in my life and registered vehicles in those states. In every case, you have a paper title but there is also a digital record. If the paper title is lost if can be replaced for a fee. Digital ownership records have existed for as long as I can remember.

  • And THIS is what blockchains are for.

  • What happens when a California titled car is sold and registered in Texas then sold again and registered in Cali or somewhere else?

    Or once its sold in Cali and everyone loses their physical titles 'cause you don't need em anymore' is that car now locked to only be sold or registered in Cali?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Lots of fraud in property titles also. County recorders can easily be duped into fraud for land.

  • More personal information--exposed from company to company. Just keep dangling it in front of the sharks.
  • California DMV has had an electronic lien and titling database for years. It's not like they (still) have 42 million pieces of paper in a warehouse in Sacramento. When you lose your physical title document (the "pink slip") they just issue a new one based on the electronic record.
    It can currently take up to 30 days for the DMV to update their database when you use paper (or scans of paper) documents to change the vehicle title - everything gets checked by DMV employees to (try to...) ensure that the submitted (paper or scanned) documents are not fraudulent.

    Going to a blockchain will have the benefit of creating a verifiable digital identity (the wallet id on the blockchain) for the title holder.
    The DMV will know the legal entity associated with the wallet - they'll require you to disclose this to claim your vehicle title in the rollout of the app.
    If you protect access to your vehicle title wallet (as you would a currency wallet) then it would be harder for someone to forge a transfer of title.
    When you sell a vehicle you could do that without the direct involvement of DMV staff to verify the title documents - the transaction would be almost instantaneous. (no more filing "Notice of Release of Liability" forms).

    So, it seems like a win - except for people who don't have smart phones.

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