Overview
The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV) is the state agency responsible for driver licensing and identification, motor-vehicle and vessel titling and registration, and the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP).
It operates statewide, high-transaction systems that touch nearly every Florida resident — the customer-facing MyDMV Portal for license and registration services, the credentialing systems behind physical and (relaunching) mobile IDs, and the public-safety IT that supports troopers in the field. The agency works through a network of county tax collectors and license-plate agents who deliver many in-person services, which makes data integration, identity verification, and secure service delivery central to its technology footprint.
For a Dell SLG seller, FLHSMV is an enterprise-modernization, digital-identity, and law-enforcement-technology account rather than a single-program buyer: its Office of Motorist Modernization (OMM) is explicitly chartered to replace antiquated systems, and its public-safety mission drives demand for compute, storage, security, and edge/field infrastructure.
How this account buys
- Office of Motorist Modernization (OMM) is the enterprise-modernization buying center, driving MyDMV Portal / systems-replacement work
- Agency IT leadership (CIO / Information Systems Administration) and OMM jointly shape technology funding priorities
- Florida DMS sets statewide IT standards and State Term Contracts that FLHSMV is directed to buy from first
- Fastest compliant path: DMS State Term Contracts / Alternate Contract Sources via MyFloridaMarketPlace (MFMP) vendor registration
- Larger modernization, identity/credentialing, and public-safety programs run through FLHSMV's own RFP/ITN solicitations
Where Dell Can Play
- Map the modernization buying center: connect with the Office of Motorist Modernization and FLHSMV IT leadership, and confirm the current CIO/IT executive and reporting line before forecasting.
- Confirm Dell's position on the relevant DMS state term contracts and alternate contract sources, and ensure VIP/MyFloridaMarketPlace registration is current so the agency can buy without friction.
- Lead with enterprise-modernization infrastructure (compute, storage, data platform, and secure identity/authentication) tied to MyDMV Portal and the OMM systems-replacement roadmap.
- Position for the public-safety mission with FHP: edge/field compute, ruggedized devices, storage for video/crash data, and secure connectivity, aligned to the FY2026-27 fleet, aviation, and communications priorities.
- Track the mDL relaunch and identity-verification work as digital-identity/security pull-through — note the HB 543 framework died in 2026 and will likely return next session, so the current relaunch is administrative/procurement-driven; partner with the credentialing/identity ecosystem rather than competing with the credential issuer itself.
Budget & Fiscal
FLHSMV is funded through the annual Florida state budget; the FY2026-27 'Floridians First' budget recommended by Governor DeSantis emphasized Florida Highway Patrol resources and personnel, with several technology-adjacent line items. Figures below are from the agency's December 2025 summary of the Governor's recommendations and should be confirmed against the final enacted General Appropriations Act.
$11.5M
FHP Career Development Plan
FY2026-27 recommendation; trooper recruitment, retention, and professional growth
$5.4M
Patrol vehicle replacement
FY2026-27 recommendation; replacing aging FHP fleet amid procurement cost increases
$1M+
FHP communication services
FY2026-27 recommendation; law-enforcement software, crash-diagramming tools, and radio maintenance
- Figures reflect the Governor's FY2026-27 recommended budget (per FLHSMV's Dec 16, 2025 release), not necessarily final enacted appropriations — verify against the enacted GAA.
- FLHSMV's base budget runs in the hundreds of millions with thousands of FTE (Senate base-budget review materials list roughly 4,495 FTE); the largest dollars sit in FHP personnel and operations, with IT modernization funded across operating and capital lines.
- Additional FY2026-27 recommendations included roughly $4.9M for the Tactical Aviation Command and over $2M for license-plate consumables — adjacent to fleet, aviation, and field-technology spend.
Initiatives & Priorities
Motorist Modernization (MyDMV Portal)
FLHSMV's Office of Motorist Modernization is chartered to replace antiquated systems with flexible architecture, improve service delivery, and strengthen data quality and security. The customer-facing MyDMV Portal digitizes driver-license, registration, title, and parking-permit transactions — a multi-year enterprise-modernization track touching identity, data, and cloud.
Modernization Digital ServicesMobile driver's license relaunch
After pulling the Thales-built 'Florida Smart ID' from app stores in 2024, Florida intends to relaunch its mDL. The 2026 legislative vehicle for a modern framework — HB 543, which would have required ISO/IEC 18013-5 and 18013-7 compliance, selective disclosure, no state tracking, and unlinkable transactions — passed both chambers but died in returning messages on March 13, 2026, so it did NOT become law this session. The app remains unavailable and the relaunch continues as an administrative/procurement effort; expect the framework to return in a future session. Still a high-profile digital-identity and credentialing modernization to track closely.
Digital ID SecurityIdentity verification / fraud prevention
FLHSMV has moved to modernize identity-proofing for online services (reporting cited an upgrade toward selfie-biometric and identity-database verification for the MyDMV Portal). Identity assurance, fraud prevention, and secure authentication are recurring needs as more transactions shift online.
Identity CybersecurityPublic-safety & field technology (FHP)
Florida Highway Patrol drives demand for in-vehicle and field technology — law-enforcement software, crash-diagramming tools, radio/communications, and an FY2026-27 emphasis on aviation and fleet. A path for edge compute, ruggedized devices, storage, and secure connectivity.
Public Safety EdgeProcurement
FLHSMV buys IT through Florida's centralized procurement framework plus its own agency solicitations. Confirm Dell's position on the relevant Department of Management Services (DMS) state term contracts and alternate contract sources, then track agency-specific RFPs for modernization and public-safety programs.
| Vehicle / gate | What it means for Dell |
|---|---|
| DMS state term contracts | Florida's Department of Management Services (DMS) maintains statewide State Term Contracts and Alternate Contract Sources for IT commodities and services; agencies are generally directed to buy from these where they exist. The primary path for catalog hardware and services. |
| MyFloridaMarketPlace (MFMP) / Vendor Information Portal | DMS's eProcurement system and vendor registry — vendors must register in the Vendor Information Portal (VIP) to do business with the state, and solicitations post to the Vendor Bid System. |
| Agency RFPs / ITNs | FLHSMV issues its own solicitations (RFP / Invitation to Negotiate) for larger modernization, identity/credentialing, and public-safety programs — watch the Vendor Bid System and agency postings for OMM and mDL-related work. |
| Cooperative / piggyback contracts | Cooperative and piggyback vehicles can supplement state term contracts for specific categories — confirm eligibility and current scope before relying on them. |
Spend Signals
GovSpend · as of Sep 21, 2026$2.4M
Dell footprint — all channels (3-yr · FY2023–2025), est.
Direct $2.1M · via resellers ~$269K · Insight ~$265K, W W Grainger ~$2K
Dell vs. competitors (spend, payee)
Brand footprint — all channels (est.)
Higher of two conservative lenses: product-name match · manufacturer tag. Both undercount — treat as floors.
Expiring contracts (re-compete)
| Contract | Vendor | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Enterprise Agreement | Shi International Corp | May 31, 2027 |
- Window uses Florida's Jul–Jun fiscal year (PO.IssuedDate 2022-07-01 to 2025-06-30, labeled FY2023–2025).
- Cisco required exact-match text search to exclude heavy false positives from fuzzy matching — IT-staffing firms whose contract text coincidentally matched "catalyst"/"cisco" (not hardware), plus vendor-name collisions (Rosetta Stone's "Catalyst" language product; Catalyst Communications Technologies' own "Catalyst" software) inflated the fuzzy total by roughly 4x.
- PO.Category and LineItem.Category are blank for this agency in GovSpend, so no category breakdown could be produced.
- Only 4 contracts in GovSpend expire in this window for FLHSMV and none are IT-relevant, so expiringContracts is omitted; HPE, Lenovo, and Apple brand matches all fell below the $100K reporting floor (Apple's only material hit, Shield Group Technologies, was a false positive — a mobile app description merely mentioning "Apple iOS" compatibility).
- Bid and contract panels refreshed 2026-09-21 from GovSpend (agencyId 80361): 0 open bids due on or after 2026-09-21 and 1 contract ending on or after 2026-10-05 (two-week runway), IT-relevant only. Agency ID 80361 resolved by lookup (FHP record 286921 not used); no open bids at all, and a second SHI Microsoft EA record ending 2027-06-30 was folded into this one.
Power Structure
| Decision-maker | Why they matter |
|---|---|
| Dave Kerner Executive Director, FLHSMV | Florida's 11th FLHSMV Executive Director (approved by Governor and Cabinet, January 2023). Top executive sponsor for agency-wide modernization and public-safety priorities. |
| Col. Gary L. Howze II Director, Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) | 15th Colonel of FHP (appointed April 2023). Owns the public-safety mission and field-technology, fleet, aviation, and communications priorities. |
| Office of Motorist Modernization (OMM) Enterprise modernization program | Agency program office chartered to replace antiquated systems and deliver MyDMV Portal and related modernization — the buying center for the modernization motion. |
| FLHSMV IT leadership Information Systems Administration / agency CIO function | Owns the agency's IT and data systems (reporting has named a Director of Information Systems Administration). Confirm the current CIO/IT executive and reporting line before forecasting. |
| Florida DMS — State Purchasing Statewide procurement authority | Owns the state term contracts, MFMP, and vendor registration that govern how FLHSMV buys IT — the gate for contract access. |
News & Signals
Sep 2026
FHP trooper arrested for sharing DAVID/FCIC/NCIC and Flock data via text and Snapchat at least 22 times
FDLE arrested FHP Trooper Alain Fernandez on Sept. 9, alleging he pulled confidential records from restricted systems including Florida's DAVID database, FCIC and NCIC and shared driver's-license photos, addresses and Flock ALPR data at least 22 times (2022-2025) via text and Snapchat. Surfacing days after the DAVID breach, it spotlights insider-threat and access-auditing gaps in the same sensitive law-enforcement data systems. For a Dell SLG seller this reinforces opportunity around identity/access governance, database access logging and monitoring, DLP and insider-threat tooling across FLHSMV/FHP and partner agencies.
Sep 2026
ShinyHunters publishes stolen DAVID driver records after Florida declines to pay ransom
After the ransom deadline passed with no payment, the ShinyHunters extortion group published data it says covers more than 200,000 people from FLHSMV's DAVID driver/vehicle database, escalating beyond the threat-to-leak and official breach confirmation already on file. FLHSMV says it is working with the Attorney General's office, the Florida Digital Service and FDLE on an ongoing criminal investigation and has not committed to notifying affected drivers. For a Dell SLG seller, an actual data dump traced to a Plant City PD credential stored on a personal device sharpens demand around endpoint/credential hardening, MFA for DAVID-connected agencies, identity protection and data-governance controls.
Sep 2026
FLHSMV officially confirms DAVID breach; traces access to a Plant City PD credential stored on a personal device
FLHSMV issued a formal statement on Sept. 11 confirming the DAVID (Driver and Vehicle Information Database) breach it learned of Sept. 4, attributing the unauthorized access to a single Plant City Police Department user's credentials that were improperly stored on the employee's personal device, and saying the incident was quickly mitigated with no ongoing access; it notified the Attorney General and is partnering with the Florida Digital Service and FDLE, while ShinyHunters claims (unconfirmed by the state) that 200,000+ driver records were taken. This is the official confirmation and root-cause disclosure that goes beyond the earlier on-file 'claim' entry. For a Dell SLG seller, a confirmed breach of a sensitive law-enforcement identity database — rooted in downstream credential handling across hundreds of DAVID-authorized agencies — drives demand for identity/credential security, endpoint and access controls, monitoring, and zero-trust modernization aligned to Florida's cybersecurity standards.
Aug 2026
FLHSMV posts RFI-027-27 seeking builders to plan a scattered network of small detention sites
FLHSMV — parent agency to the Florida Highway Patrol — uploaded a formal request for information (FLHSMV-RFI-027-27) to the state vendor marketplace on Aug. 3, with responses due Aug. 10, to help plan a distributed network of small detention sites. This is primarily a facilities/immigration-enforcement signal rather than an IT buy, but new FHP-operated sites would carry downstream needs for networking, endpoints, physical-security systems, and connectivity. For a Dell SLG seller it is an early, low-confidence watch item on the public-safety/field-infrastructure track.
Sep 2026
ShinyHunters claims breach of FLHSMV's DAVID driver/vehicle database; threatens to leak stolen data
The extortion group ShinyHunters added FLHSMV to its data-leak site, claiming it stole data from DAVID — the Driver and Vehicle Information Database that law enforcement uses to look up driver records — and posting a sample record as proof. A breach of the agency's core identity/credentialing system strikes directly at the digital-identity and public-safety data motion at the heart of this account. For a Dell SLG seller this is a live opening to lead with endpoint/identity security, data protection, resilient/immutable backup and recovery, and incident-response infrastructure; the claim is attacker-sourced and not yet confirmed by FLHSMV, so treat scope as unverified.
Jun 2026
ORION rollout falters: chronic statewide outages six months after launch
ORION (Online Registration and Identity Operating Network), launched January 2026 as the centerpiece of Motorist Modernization, has crashed or badly slowed repeatedly since go-live. Polk County's tax collector logged 12 days of crashes or critical slowdowns in May alone — out of fewer than 20 business days — with 20-minute transactions stretching to three hours; Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Manatee, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Duval offices report the same. Tax collectors have publicly demanded action and the department has given no resolution timeline. This is the strongest infrastructure opening in the account: lead with performance, resilience, capacity, and observability for a flagship system that is publicly failing under real transaction load.
Jun 2026
Governor DeSantis signs $117.6B FY2026-27 budget (June 29, 2026)
The enacted budget (signed at Hillsborough College, with ~$810M in line-item vetoes) locks in FLHSMV/FHP operating and public-safety dollars — confirm final FHP career-development, fleet, aviation, and communications lines against the enacted GAA and watch for vetoes affecting modernization/IT.
Mar 2026
HB 543 mDL/digital-credentialing bill dies despite passing both chambers
The 2026 transportation bill carrying Florida's modern mobile-driver's-license framework (ISO/IEC 18013-5/-7, selective disclosure, no state tracking) passed the House (107-1) and Senate (33-0) but died in returning messages on March 13, 2026 — so it did NOT become law. The mDL relaunch stays an administrative/procurement effort; expect the framework to return in a future session.
Dec 2025
FLHSMV summarizes Governor's FY2026-27 'Floridians First' budget for law enforcement
Recommended FHP funding for career development, fleet replacement, aviation, and communications/law-enforcement software — signals where public-safety technology dollars are headed; now largely reflected in the enacted June 2026 budget.
Jul 2024
Florida pulls 'Florida Smart ID' mDL app from app stores for overhaul
Reset the state's digital-ID program and set up the intended relaunch — context for why identity/credentialing remains an active modernization track at FLHSMV.
Sources
- FLHSMV — Executive Director Dave Kerner approved by Governor and Cabinet (Jan 2023)
- FLHSMV — Governor's FY2026-27 'Floridians First' Budget Supports Law Enforcement (Dec 2025)
- Executive Office of the Governor — DeSantis Signs FY2026-27 Budget (June 29, 2026)
- Florida Senate — HB 543 (2026) bill history (died in returning messages, 3/13/2026)
- FLHSMV — MyDMV Portal / Motorist Modernization
- Biometric Update — Florida House passes bill to relaunch mDL program (HB 543)
- Biometric Update — Florida tosses mDL program (Smart ID pulled, 2024)
- Florida Senate — DHSMV Base Budget review (FTE/appropriations)
- Florida DMS — State Purchasing (state term contracts, MFMP)
- FAST — Gary Howze II named FHP Director (Colonel)
- WUSF — Tampa Bay area tax collectors scramble to serve customers as DMV network fails (June 2, 2026)
- Bay News 9 — Tax collectors call on state to address ORION system outages (May 28, 2026)
- Latin Times — Florida Highway Patrol Quietly Shops for a New Generation of Detention Sites
- BleepingComputer — ShinyHunters hackers claim breach of Florida "DAVID" DMV database
- FLHSMV — FLHSMV Releases Statement on Data Breach
- SOFX — Hackers Dump Florida Driver Records Stolen Through a Police Login
- CBS12 (WPEC) — FHP trooper accused of sending license photos, Flock data over Snapchat