As a civilian, you may wonder whether you are able to look up a license plate and whether it is illegal to run someone’s license plate or not. Well, this information should be known by you because it is related to law.
Looking Up License Plates as Civilians and Whether It is Illegal to Run Someone’s License Plate
The information about vehicles in every state is saved in various databases and usually the databases are available for law enforcement. In the databases, the information about vehicles included is the vehicle and the registered owner. As a civilian, can we see the information? No, you are not able to see it because it is not available for civilians. You are not able to run a license plate and cannot access the information as well. Let’s say that you note the number of a license plate in the street and then you try to look it up. Then, you will not be able to do that.
If you want, you are able to get help from the DMV or Department of Motor Vehicles because they have the capacity to run license plates. When you get help from them, you will have to fill out a form and pay a fee. You also need to have a good reason to run the license. Let’s say that your reason is not approved. Then, your request to run the license plate will be denied.
How about looking up online? If you find a website that claims that they can run license plates for a fee, don’t believe it. It is because it is illegal and against the law. The website may also be a scam where they give you false information.
So, civilians are not able to run a license plate and it is an illegal action for a civilian to do that.
Civilians May Want to Run License Plate in These Situations
If you want to run a license plate, you are able to do that by the help of DMV or the police. However, you can ask them to run the license plate if you have a valid reason. Here are the situations where you may want to run a license plate.
- When you are involved in a hit-and-run.
- When you are producing a statistical report.
- If you are an employer and you have to verify information.
- When you are buying a second-hand car.
Information that Can be Accessed by Running a License Plate
The police can get the information of a vehicle by running a license plate. Here is some information that can be known by the police by running a license plate.
- The registered vehicle owner’s full name
- The address of the registered vehicle owner
- The state of where the vehicle is registered in
- The information that the vehicle is reported as stolen if it is stolen
- The information whether the vehicle matches the plate is registered to
In some states, by running a license plate, the police can find out whether the vehicle has valid insurance or not where this information is useful to find out whether the vehicle is involved in a crime or not and whether the driver is the registered owner of the vehicle or not. From this, we are able to see that this information is not the information used by a civilian so no wonder why running a license plate is not permitted for a civilian.
A bookworm and researcher especially related to law and citizenship education. I spend time every day in front of the internet and the campus library.
