All Motor Vehicle Records are Protected
All motor vehicle records are classified as "protected." Under this designation, a motor vehicle record may only be released to the subject of the record, the subject's legal representative, law enforcement and others designated in the law. Motor vehicle records are not available for commercial advertising use.
Release of Protected Records
Utah law and the Federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act allows records to be disclosed under the following situations:
- The person who submitted the information in the record, or, in the case of an incorporated business, an officer of the corporation.
- To any government agency, including any court or law enforcement agency, in carrying out its functions.
- For use in connection with matters of motor vehicle or driver safety and theft, motor vehicle emissions, motor vehicle product alterations, recalls or advisories.
- For use in the normal course of business by a legitimate business to verify the accuracy of personal information submitted by the individual to the business.
- For use in connection with any civil, criminal, administrative or arbitral proceeding in any Federal, State or local court or agency.
- For use in research activities and for use in producing statistical reports, so long as the personal information is not published, re-disclosed or used to contact individuals.
- For use by any insurer or insurance support organization or by a self-insured entity in connection with claims investigation activities.
- For use in providing notice to owners of towed or impounded vehicles.
- For use by any licensed private investigator or licensed security service for any purpose permitted under the act.
- For use by any requestor, if the requestor presents written consent from the individual to whom the information pertains.
- For any other use specifically authorized under the law of the state that holds the record, if such use relates to operation of motor vehicles.
Federal statute states that for some specified reasons information contained in motor vehicle records shall be disclosed yet, for other specified reasons, may not be disclosed. The reasons that fall under "may be disclosed" allows the state discretion in the disclosure of its motor vehicle records. Specifically, Utah has decided to exercise its discretionary powers to deny access to motor vehicle records when the intent of access is for debt collection, skip tracing or asset recovery.
Obtaining Motor Vehicle Records
The recorded owner, lien holder or other statutorily permitted entity may purchase a protected record after demonstrating it has legal right to access the record.
To purchase protected motor vehicle information, a qualified requestor may subscribe to the on-line Title, Lien and Registration Service (TLR) service (see below), or present a completed Form TC-890, Release of Protected Motor Vehicle Information to the DMV.
The fees for requests are:
In-person Account Requests
- $3.00 for each file printed
- $4.00 for each file printed and faxed
- $6.50 for each microfilm record
Telephone Account Requests
- $3.00 for verbal or mailed requests
- $4.00 for each file printed and faxed
- $6.50 for each microfilm record
Title, Lien and Registration Service (TLR)
Motor vehicle information is available only through TLR, which is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A TLR subscription costs $95 per year, plus $2 per record accessed. To access a record online using TLR, the requestor must have a full Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) or a license plate number. Eligible organizations may subscribe to TLR by visiting http://utah.gov/registration/.