We run a hotel in California.  As a normal part of business, we
photocopy guests' drivers license if they are a cash customer. 
Recently, one of the guests protested claimed that it is illegal to
photocopy a drivers license.  Is there any validity to this?

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 12 Jul 2004 09:29 PDT

It would be next to impossible to answer this question by researching
the legality in all 50 states of making photocopies of licenses.

However, a photocopy of a driver's license is a common requirement for
many applications and is used by a wide variety of government offices,
AAA, schools, and many, many others, in California and elsewhere.

Would a listing of some of these requirements put your mind at ease? 
If so, I will be glad to post a number of them as an answer to your
question.

Dear thebling-ga;

Thank you for allowing me to answer your interesting question.

Your customer may have mistakenly assumed that making a fraudulent
copy (counterfeit) of a driver?s license (which "is" illegal) includes
photocopying it (which is not illegal). However, there is no such law
in California that prohibits anyone from making a photocopy image of a
driver?s license or identification card. In fact, this practice is
common to many agencies through that states such a Universities,
Colleges, Hospital admissions, Department of Health and Human
Services, and even the California Department of Justice, headed by the
California Attorney General himself, instructs one to make a photocopy
of his or her identification and send it to them for identification
purposes in order to obtain certain information or documents from
their office.

?To obtain a list of firearms listed in your name, send a letter
requesting this information to the Automated Firearms Unit, P.O. Box
820200, Sacramento, CA 94203-0200.  The letter must be signed,
notarized, and include a photocopy of your photo ID card (ie.,
driver's license or DMV ID).?
OFFICE OF ATTORNEY GENERAL
http://caag.state.ca.us/firearms/pubfaqs.htm

?When using the Magnetic Stripe Reader, if the Magnetic Stripe Reader
is not reading the driver's license, the customer's information should
be manually keyed in. In addition, make a photocopy of the driver's
license, attach it to the DROS, and keep on file with the DROS.?
OFFICE OF ATTORNEY GENERAL
http://caag.state.ca.us/firearms/magnote.htm

Even the California Penal Code not only instructs, but REQUIRES
certain entities to make photocopies of a person?s California
identification whether it is an ID card or a driver?s license. Take
gun dealers for example:

?Due to technical limitations, the magnetic stripe reader is unable to
obtain the required information from the purchaser's identification. 
In those circumstances, the firearms dealer shall obtain a photocopy
of the identification as proof of compliance.
CALIFORNIA PENAL CODE SECTION 12077(f)(2)
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=65280011913+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve

Where is this law authorizing photocopies of licenses also mentioned? 

You guessed it?the California Attorney General?s Office:

?Penal Code section 12077(f)(2) specifically authorizes dealer's to
obtain a photocopy of the purchaser's DMV card in the event the card
cannot be swiped through the reader due to technical limitations.?
OFFICE OF ATTORNEY GENERAL
http://caag.state.ca.us/firearms/dipfaq.html



It is very hard to prove a negative, but in this case at least, it is
clear that had photocopying identification in any manner been illegal
in the State of California, the highest legal officer in the land
would not be publicly instructing people to blatantly violate the law
(in numerous instances) as a requirement of his own elected office.

This practice also extends to the Federal government, I might add, as
you can see in this example where the United States Bankruptcy Court
also requires one to produce a photocopy of a valid ID:

?Completed PROOF OF RIGHT TO PAYMENT OF DIVIDEND FROM UNCLAIMED FUNDS,
(CSD 4026) Photocopy of current driver's license (attach to PROOF OF
RIGHT form). If you do not have a current driver's license, other
identification containing a photograph and current address is
required.?
UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT
http://www.casb.uscourts.gov/html/CSD%20Forms/Csd4025.pdf


My best guess is that if your misinformed customer didn?t want to
surrender his license momentarily to authorize a photocopy of it, he
didn?t want to stay at your hotel bad enough.

I hope you find that my research exceeds your expectations. If you
have any questions about my research please post a clarification
request prior to rating the answer. Otherwise I welcome your rating
and your final comments and I look forward to working with you again
in the near future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.

Best regards;
Tutuzdad-ga ? Google Answers Researcher



INFORMATION SOURCES


DEFINED ABOVE


SEARCH STRATEGY


SEARCH ENGINE USED:

Google ://www.google.com


SEARCH TERMS USED:

CALIFORNIA

DRIVER?S LICENSES

DMV

ATTORNEY GENERAL

CALIFORNIA PENAL CODE

PHOTOCOPY

LAW

Thank you!  Great information.  Very complete answer.

Unfortunately that answer is not complete and is rather misleading.
The California law that applies are changes to the civil code derived
from SB 602 which was signed into law in September of 2003. The law
came into effect on Jan. 1, 2004. I would suggest you refer to that
for a real answer. The text is below. In general, swiping of
California drivers licenses is forbidden except for a set of
exceptions. The google answer specified just one of those exceptions
from which a general answer was guessed at. I am not a lawyer but from
reading the text I would say your customer was right, because in the
case of a hotel guest, I don't see a need to verify the authenticity
of the drivers license. I am sorry you paid for that answer, and even
gave a tip.

      regards,
                racerx

     TITLE 1.81.2.  CONFIDENTIALITY OF DRIVER'S LICENSE INFORMATION

   1798.90.1.  (a) (1) Any business may swipe a driver's license or
identification card issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles in any
electronic device for the following purposes:
   (A) To verify age or the authenticity of the driver's license or
identification card.
   (B) To comply with a legal requirement to record, retain, or
transmit that information.
   (C) To transmit information to a check service company for the
purpose of approving negotiable instruments, electronic funds
transfers, or similar methods of payments, provided that only the
name and identification number from the license or the card may be
used or retained by the check service company.
   (D) To collect or disclose personal information that is required
for reporting, investigating, or preventing fraud, abuse, or material
misrepresentation.
   (2) A business may not retain or use any of the information
obtained by that electronic means for any purpose other than as
provided herein.
   (b) As used in this section, "business" means a proprietorship,
partnership, corporation, or any other form of commercial enterprise.

   (c) A violation of this section constitutes a misdemeanor
punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for no more than one
year, or by a fine of no more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or
by both.

Thank you for making MY point. According to the statute you presented
it is CLEARLY legal for a business in the State of California to make
a photocopy of a driver's license for business purposes.

The rest of your statement is simply incorrect, except for the part
about you not being a lawyer of course - a fact that is unmistakably
apparent.

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

Sorry, My intention is not to start some kind of flame war here. I
apologize for my previous comment being a bit harsh. I am just trying
to clarify the issues involved here. There is certainly a balance
needed to maintain personal privacy which will continue to be eroded
by technology advances unless efforts are made to preserve it. I had
left out an earlier paragraph of that same portion of the law which
clarifies things. It is as follows:

   (3) Existing law permits a business to use information data
encoded on a driver's license for verification purposes.
   This bill would prohibit the use and retention of this
information, except to verify age or the authenticity of a driver's
license or identification card, to comply with a legal requirement to
record, retain, or transmit that information, to transmit
information to a check service company, as specified, or for the
collection or disclosure of that information is required for
specified purposes.  The bill would make a violation of these
provisions a crime, thereby imposing a state-mandated local program.

My point is that the need to verify authenticity of a driver's license
has to be something imposed upon the business by some other legal
requirement. I don't see that as being likely for just being a guest
at a hotel. I am not positively sure about that though.

    regards,

              racerx

Allow me to follow up on this with further clarification. The analysis
for the bill, SB 602, in state senate proceedings contains the
following paragraph:

          Improper Retention of Electronically Encoded Information  
          from     Government Identification
           
          Existing law prohibits businesses from requiring a consumer  
          to provide a driver's license number in connection with  
          certain transactions, such as a credit card transaction or  
          club card application.

          This bill provides that any business may swipe a driver's  
          license or identification (ID) card issued by the State  
          Department of Motor Vehicles in any electronic device for  
          the following purposes:  (1) to verify age or the  
          authenticity of the driver's license or ID card, (2) to  
          comply with a legal requirement to record, retain, or  
          transmit that information, (3) to transmit information to a  
          check service company for the purpose of approving  
          negotiable instruments, electronic funds transfers, or  
          similar methods of payments, provided that only the name  
          and ID number for the license or the card may be used or  
          retained by the check service company, (4) to collect or  
          disclose personal information that is required for  
          reporting, investigating, or preventing fraud, abuse, or  
          material misrepresentation.

          A violation of this section constitutes a misdemeanor  
          punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for no more  
          than one year, or by a fine of no more than $10,000, or by  
          both.


My reading of this is that, in general, a business can read either the
magnetic stripe or the bar code in order to verify that it matches the
information on the front of the card. The information in the magnetic
strip is, for California at least, just a duplication of the
information on the front of the license. It had better match, or it is
invalid. However, that information cannot be retained (for another day
or even another hour) unless there is some further legal requirement
imposed upon the business forcing it to do so. A photograph made of
the license would have to be destroyed immediately. Also, the act of
taking a photograph does not, in any way, verify that the license is
valid. This would mean that taking a photograph of a license, and
keeping it, would certainly be illegal under this law.

    regards,
               racerx

Wrong again sir.

A.   A photoCOPY (i.e. Xerox) is not considered a photograph. The
customer did not ask about "photographing" a license and issue is
moot.

B:   Making a photocopy of a license is no more considered "Retention
of Electronically Encoded Information" than writing the number down
with a pencil is - and if it were, policemen would be breaking the law
thousands of times a day when they write traffic citations, wouldn't
they?

I have more than 20 years of professional law enforcement myself and I
know of no law that prohibits the photocopying of a driver's license
in California or in any other state or US territory for that matter.

The question was sufficiently answered and supported and as always I
stand by my research.

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

Racerx-17 and Tutuzdad,

I am glad to see this additional dialogue.  Especially since this case
was opened about six months ago.  Good information!

As a hotel, we simply want to "photocopy" the driver's license (never
"swipe" the magnetic strip) to:

"...To collect or disclose personal information that is required
for reporting, investigating, or preventing fraud, abuse, or material
misrepresentation." [as quoted from TITLE 1.81.2.  CONFIDENTIALITY OF
DRIVER'S LICENSE INFORMATION (D)]

Mainly, I want to prevent fraud and abuse.  Guests may destroy the
room or steal the TV.  Or often, they provide fraudulent credit cards.
 As a business, we need some way to protect ourselves.

Regards,

TheBling

As I pointed out, I know of no law that prohibits this practice and
again, even the California Attorney General himself mentions on his
official web site that there is a provision that clearly allows for
it.

OFFICE OF ATTORNEY GENERAL
http://caag.state.ca.us/firearms/dipfaq.html

Banks do it all the time;  so do car dealer's when a person takes a
test drive, so do employers, so do gun dealers, so do insurance
companys, so do police departments, so do hospitals, and the list goes
on and on. There simply is no law against it. Can you refuse? Perhaps,
I found no law against that either but that doesn't guarantee that you
won't be refused service.

I hope this clears it all up.

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

Hello everyybody,

Seeing as how this question has been resurrected, I thought I'd throw
my 2 cents in.

Tutuzdad is right (of course...as always).  

The customer who questioned the legality of providing a license plate
may have been confused by a very particular California law passed a
few years back.  In the wake of some inappropriate use of personal
information collected by supermarkets when shoppers applied for "club
cards", California passed a law making it illegal for supermarkets to
require a driver's license as a condition of getting a club card.

As far as I know, this is the only specific restriction along these
lines.  So, as long as thebling-ga's hotel isn't doubling as a
supermarket shoppers club, I think they're 100% in the right on this
one.

Like I said...just my $.02

pafalafa-ga

It is apparent that that Google Answers is not an ideal forum. Contradiction
of a Google answer is threatening to the researcher involved, for whom, I guess,
this is their profession. I can see that there is that tension here. It is not
my intention to be some amateur pedantic nitwit, smugly sticking my nose into
other people's business. I ran across this posting doing research on how 
information is encoded into driver's licencses and the laws dealing with
maintaining privacy of that information. I felt I had to correct what I still
see as incorrect information.
    The law is trying to strike a balance between maintaining personal privacy
and the valid concern of business establishments, like the hotel, that want to
have some recourse when suffering from damages or theft. To the hotel owner: I
would argue that all you need to retain is the person's name and the state that
issued the driver's license. In case of theft or damage to your hotel, a police
investigation will allow you to identify the person and go from there. If there
is a duplication of that name in the DMV database for that state, the police
will allow you to identify the correct person from the photos in that set of
licenses. This assumes that the driver's license is not a fake. However, making
a photocopy of the license does not help to verify the authenticity of that
license. What you should do is buy the small device to read the magnetic strip
on a license and the software that will run on any PC to use with it
(alltogether $60-$100). You can then verify that the information in
the magnetic strip matches the text on the front of the license. This
eliminates the cheap fakes but it is certainly not impossible to
encode fake information into the magnetic strip and the barcode.

An Aside:
          I would lobby the state use either an embedded microchip or a
two-dimensional bar code on issued licenses and digitally sign the information
using public key encryption. The encoded information would include a
digitization of the photgraph on the front. This would prevent the
creation of new fake licenses and any alteration of an existing
license. Also, any business could then verify that the license was
truly authentic.

    The change in the law (for which I listed the pertinent passages above) that
came into effect at the beginning of 2004 was meant to address the problem of
a business using a person's address for their own benefit (e.g. selling it to
another business for marketing purposes). The legislators did not want
to prevent a business from trying to verify the authenticity of a
license but they did prohibit retention of the driver's license
information. A photocopy clearly must considered retention of
information and is probably prohibited. Now the law does not
specifically mention "photocopy" nor does it mention digitally
scanning the card, photographing, scanning with an OCR reader, or
writing all the information down by hand. It would be up to the courts
to decide the correct interpretation of this law based upon both the
text and the intentions of the lawmakers. Because the intention of the
law must be taken into consideration, the actual method of retention
would not render moot an objection to retention of information. I have
not yet investigated to see if there have already been decisions based
on this law or there are any pending cases (Tutuzdad, have you
researched this?).
    Another issue is what is meant by "rentention". I would argue, that it only
takes a minute to verify that the information in the magnetic strip matches that
on the front of the license and that storing that information for any amount of
time longer is retention. The hotel owner probably wants to keep that
information until the guest checks out of the hotel. Again, it would
be up to the courts to, more precisely, define the meaning when some
test case comes up. To the hotel owner: why risk being involved in
that test case when there is no real advantage to you for making a
photocopy.
    I have to, again, point out the fallacy in Tutuzdad's arguments.
He, or she, is listing many of the exceptions that are mentioned as
such in the law itself and using these to generalize that nobody is
prohibited from collecting and retaining the information from a
driver's license. The police definitely have the authority, when you
are driving, to collect the information from your license and even use
that to view any information on you as to criminal record, driving
record, or oustanding warrants. The average citizen cannot do this. In
the case of a firearms purchase, the seller is required by federal law
to collect the information on your driver's license and to retain it.
This does not apply when you are purchasing most things, such as a tv
set. This law does not explicitly mention all these instances but
lists what types of further legal requirement there can be which allow
exceptions to be made for retaining information. I don't see that
being a guest at a hotel falls into any of the categories listed.
    Another fallacy that you use is to say that because a business has been
photocopying licenses and no one has taken them to court so far, it must be
legal. This is a new law and was made to counter such existing
practices. Finally, if you are going to post a response, please
address my specific arguments rather than generally proclaiming me
wrong and questioning my qualifications. That simply does not advance
the debate.

        regards,
                 racerx