Opinion ID: 2420277
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Permissible Uses of Personal Information under the DPPA

Text: Senne's success on the meaning of the Section 2721(a), however, is short-lived. Title 18, Section 2721(b), of the United States Code, lists permissible uses of personal information that do not violate the DPPA. In all, Congress included 14 permissible uses. They run the gamut, from certain research activities to operating toll facilities. The Village says that three permissible uses apply, but they make arguments with respect to only two of them, and we need discuss only one. Section 2721(b)(4) provides, with emphasis supplied by us: Personal information referred to in subsection (a) . . . may be disclosed . . . [f]or use in connection with any civil, criminal, administrative, or arbitral proceeding in any . . . court or agency or before any self-regulatory body, including the service of process . . . . Under Illinois law and by municipal ordinance, the parking citation that Senne received constitutes service of legal process. See 625 ILCS 5/11-208.3(b)(3) (authorizing municipalities to serve process for parking violations by means of affixing the notice to the vehicle); Village of Palatine Ordinance 2-707(b)(3) (service of complaint in administrative proceedings may be effected by affixing complaint to the property where the violation is found). Because affixing the parking citation to Senne's vehicle constituted service of process, disclosing personal information in the citation did not violate the DPPA. Neither of Senne's responses provides an answer. Senne first seems to argue that there is a distinction between disclosing information and using information and that the distinction matters. If so, then the argument is ambitious, because even a permissible use could constitute an unlawful disclosure. That argument is no silver bullet. The DPPA provides that personal information may be disclosed . . . [f]or use . . ., and then lists permissible uses. 18 U.S.C. § 2721(b). The subsection (like other parts of the DPPA) is marked by inartful drafting, to be sure, but that does not make it ambiguous. Lamie v. United States Trustee, 540 U.S. 526, 534, 124 S.Ct. 1023, 157 L.Ed.2d 1024 (2004). The only plausible reading of the subsection is that permissible uses may disclose otherwise-protected information. The implication of Senne's argument is that much if not all of Section 2721(b) is surplusage. He offers no convincing explanation for why this is a defensible, much less superior, construction of the statute. See Chickasaw Nation v. United States, 534 U.S. 84, 94, 122 S.Ct. 528, 151 L.Ed.2d 474 (2001) (canon against surplusage is sometimes offset by the canon that permits a court to reject words as surplusage if inadvertently inserted or if repugnant to the rest of the statute) (quotation marks omitted). Second, Senne argues that subsection (b)(4) should not apply because printing personal information on a citation does nothing to aid service. This an example of a common thread that runs through Senne's brief; he argues variously that the Village's practice is unnecessary, foolish, and a poor security practice. That may be, but Congress is free to use language broad enough to permit all those things. Subsection (b)(4) does not impose best practices on municipalities when enforcing traffic regulations. If municipalities disclose personal information in connection with any . . . administrative . . . proceeding. . . including the service of process, then they fall outside the Act's proscriptions. The statute does not ask whether the service of process reveals no more information than necessary to effect service, and so neither do we. [1] Because subsection (b)(4) by its terms permitted the Village to put Senne's personal information on the traffic ticket that it placed on his windshield, this lawsuit cannot move forward. The language in subsection (b)(4) is also broad enough to cover Senne's redisclosure argument. Recall, Senne intimates that the Village rediscloses personal information when a ticket recipient mails in a parking citation. The design of the citation, and instructions for using it as an envelope, means that anyone who comes across it once it has been placed in the mail can observe a ticket recipient's personal information. (Hold to one side the fact that the Village also allows in-person payment.) The provision on which Senne relies is 18 U.S.C. § 2721(c). The provision says that an authorized recipient of personal information . . . may resell or redisclose the information only for a use permitted under subsection (b). . . . Senne's argument suffers from two problems. First, the same language that allows the Village to serve process would also cover Senne's response. Second, and more importantly, subsection (c) raises the specter of liability for the person who rediscloses personal information, not the original person or entity who effected the disclosure. In this case, the person who would be on the hook for the redisclosure is Senne and we cannot entertain a lawsuit between him and himself. Aetna Life Ins. Co. of Hartford, Conn. v. Haworth, 300 U.S. 227, 240-41, 57 S.Ct. 461, 81 L.Ed. 617 (1937) (To be justiciable, a controversy must touch[] the legal relations of parties having adverse legal interests.).