More and more states are opting out of a controversial computer system that collects all publicly available information on drivers into a single, searchable database.

The system, known as Matrix, combines a huge amount of information on every person who holds a driver’s license, including current and past address, telephone numbers, car information, known associates and neighbors, speeding tickets, even marriages and divorces.

Months ago, reports began to surface indicating that a number of states had committed to and then withdrew from sharing information with Matrix, primarily over privacy concerns.

Recently, New York, Iowa and Wisconsin all recently opted out, and Michigan could soon follow.

The Matrix system is operated by a private firm called Seisint, which also will be charged with keeping track of who sees the information. The multistate project has drawn praise from many in law enforcement for its ability to help track criminals, and criticism from privacy advocates – including the American Civil Liberties Union – who fear so much personal information in the hands of either a private firm or public officials. Law-enforcement officials told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that all the information is available to police now, just not in one place where it can be easily searched.

In a letter to Guy Tunnell of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement dated March 9, Lt. Col. Steven Cumoletti of the New York State Police said “it is an appropriate time to withdraw” from the system. His letter cited the number of states that had already withdrawn and the likelihood that federal funding would be lost.

Wisconsin withdrew March 10, according to the ACLU Web site. Jim Warren, administrator of Wisconsin’s Division of Criminal Investigation, told The Associated Press that cost, privacy and potential abuses led that state to opt out.

Iowa followed those two states March 16, The AP reported, and officials in one of the five remaining states, Michigan, have announced that their state may also depart, leaving only Connecticut, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida taking part. If Michigan withdraws, the news service said, it is unlikely the system will receive federal funds.

Comments from Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, who withdrew his state from the Matrix late last year, typify criticisms of the system.

“I have held serious concerns about the privacy issues involved with this project all along, and have decided it is in the best interest of the people of Georgia that our state have no further participation in the Matrix pilot project,” Perdue said in a statement. “The criminal, prison, and sexual predator information previously submitted will remain part of the database. This information is relevant to the crime fighting purpose of the pilot project, but personal information of law-abiding citizens is not.”

The American Civil Liberties Union set its sites on the system in October of 2003. In a statement, the union, a national organization dedicated to protecting constitution rights, called the Matrix database a "Big Brother" program and called for lawmakers to end it.

The ACLU compared Matrix with the federal government’s Total Information Awareness program. That system, proposed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, was designed to integrate a large number and wide variety of information sources on individual American citizens so they could be sifted by software to detect patterns of activity that could predict whether that individual might be involved in terrorist activity.

Proponents of TIA said the system might have fingered the 9/11 terrorists while they were preparing their attack. Critics said the system would go too far in reversing curbs placed on domestic intelligence gathering that came to light in the Watergate era. The House of Representatives sided with critics earlier this year when it put an end to TIA.

“Members of Congress – who voted to close down TIA in the belief that they were ending this kind of data mining surveillance – must demand more information about The Matrix,” Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's technology and liberty program, said in a statement.  “And then they should shut it down too.”

--by Mark H. Reddig, associate editor

Mark Reddig can be reached at mark_reddig@landlinemag.com.