The Department of Revenue was targeted during Tuesday’s budget debates in the Missouri House over its practice of scanning documents for driver’s license and conceal-carry applications.
The GOP majority approved an amendment that would strip around $157,000 from the state agency’s budget, the estimated amount of money needed to scan source documents and retain electronic copies in a database. The amendment was sponsored byState Representative Todd Richardson(R, Poplar Bluff).
“There’s no purpose to scanning these source documents, and without a purpose I don’t think we should in any way be creating a huge database of source documents that puts Missourians’ private information at risk,” Richardson said.
The risk cited by Republican lawmakers is that the information on the scanned documents, in particular conceal-carry applications, would be sent to Washington DC.
DOR Director Brian Long recently told a State House committee that his agency is not collecting data for the federal government. Meanwhile, the Missouri Senate has issued a subpoena to the Department of Revenue to hand over all documentation related to its practice of scanning documents.