A problem that has developed over the past several years has been car prowlers taking information from car registrations to use in identity theft or taking the address information, then going to the address to burglarize a house. This occurs especially when the car prowler knows that the car owner will be away from the house for a longer period of time; like when they are at a movie or musical event.
The state of
Washington’s Department of Licensing has redesigned its vehicle registration
form to help improve the vehicle owner’s privacy and to reduce the chances of a
thief using the information on the registration to steal from the vehicle
owner.
The redesign
moves the vehicle registration address to the bottom of the form below a dashed
line. According to a notice on the Department of Licensing’s vehicle
registration web page, the dotted line is intended to show where you can cut
the form to remove the address before you place it in a safe place in your
vehicle. Whether you remove the address is up to you, but you do have the
option now to remove the address.
Before this,
some people would black out the address or make a copy and keep it on their smartphone
to show to a police officer should they need to. While electronic copies are Ok
according to state law and blanking out the address has been encouraged by some
local police agencies, this redesign makes it clearer that the vehicle owner
can remove the address if they want to do so.
Washington
State Department of Licensing:
https://www.dol.wa.gov/vehicleregistration/
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