SFMTA publishes list of names with license plates

https://www.sfmta.com/services/permits-citations/citation-overpayments

by axoltl • 10 years ago

33 16 10 years ago

dmitrygr• 10 years ago

That seems like an oversight....

bigiain• 10 years ago

Seems plausible - they accidentally created 9 PDF files, accidentally uploaded them to a new page in their CMS which they accidentally created, on which they accidentally wrote instructions on how to search through the PDF file to find your (or your ex-wife/stalkee's) name/plate.

No clear signs of intent that publishing names linked to plates was exactly what they set out to do...

jrockway• 10 years ago

Well, it's obvious their intent was that you could find whether or not you were owed money by searching for your license plate or name. You weren't supposed to search for someone else's licence plate or name.

Of course someone should have noticed that you can do that, and that it's bad for privacy, but didn't. That's the problem.

mmanfrin• 10 years ago

SFMTA is a truly awful organization.

vlall• 10 years ago

they'll for sure take this down.

justinclift• 10 years ago

Bit late now. ;)

templaedhel• 10 years ago

I wonder if anything interesting comes up if you correlate this data with the license plate camera data that Oakland released (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10642139).

bound008• 10 years ago

This data can't be real. It says Steve Jobs has not one, but three license plates.

JimboOmega• 10 years ago

Wasn't he known for buying new cars all the time to get around parking fines (by milking the new car plates)?

Kadin• 10 years ago

It's reported that he leased a new Mercedes every 6 months so that he didn't have to put plates on the car at all.

http://gizmodo.com/5853927/the-real-reason-steve-jobs-benz-d...

I don't know if there was anything about parking fines involved; I doubt the guy was particularly concerned about them.

650REDHAIR• 10 years ago

Wow. Didn't think it could be real, but sure enough my girlfriend's old plate is listed. That's pretty disgusting, SFMTA.

Edit

We just went through the process to claim the $125 through "surveygizmo.com". At the end it says "A customer service representative will review your information and respond to you within 21 days. If a refund is identified a check will be processed within 30 days"

heezo2• 10 years ago

Thanks for this. I scraped all of the PDF data, and threw it in a DB. Now it's searchable.

http://sfmtarefund.com

anpk• 10 years ago

Is there a way to search by name?

heezo2• 10 years ago

Unfortunately, no. There was no rhyme or reason to the way that they formatted the names. I guess I could implement a fuzzy search, but I'm still at work.

abalone• 10 years ago

Details on California DMV records.. surprisingly, a lot of the data is technically public record:

https://www.privacyrights.org/cradle-grave-government-record...

And here's the federal law on DMV record privacy. This would be a legal release of information, unfortunately (government agency "carrying out its functions"):

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2721

freedenizen• 10 years ago

Appears to be illegal under DPPA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver%27s_Privacy_Protection_...

SFMTA publishes list of names with license plates

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