The Department of Motor Vehicles (or DMV) — an agency of the United States state government that administers vehicle registration and licenses — maintained a database accessed by CTU during Day 5.
Day 5[]
CTU Los Angeles agents were following a blue van driven by terrorists Polakov and Komar. Curtis Manning reported the license plate and analyst Edgar Stiles verified it against the DMV database. It resulted that the plates belonged to another vehicle, which meant that the van was probably stolen.("Day 5: 2:00pm-3:00pm")