Opinion ID: 2976326
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Request for a new standard

Text: Lambert’s first argument is a request for us to adopt a new approach to assessing informational privacy claims—one that does not require the court to first determine whether the privacy interest implicates a fundamental right. The reasonable-expectation-of-privacy standard that Lambert proposes is in many ways similar to the more fluid approach that other circuits have adopted for assessing claims of informational privacy. See Kallstrom, 136 F.3d at 1061 n.1 (citing cases in support of the proposition that “[o]ther circuits have interpreted Whalen and Nixon as creating a broad constitutional right to informational privacy to be balanced against the public’s interest and need for the invasion of privacy”); cf. Helen L. Gilbert, Comment, Minors’ Constitutional Right to Informational Privacy, 74 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1375, 1382 (2007) (contrasting the Sixth Circuit’s approach to informational privacy with other circuits that do not require the implication of a fundamental liberty interest, and instead “decide if the party alleging an invasion of privacy has a legitimate expectation of privacy in the information in question”). Employing this standard, Lambert argues that she has a reasonable expectation of privacy in her Social Security number, and that the district court therefore erred in failing to balance that interest against the Defendants’ interest in publishing unredacted public records on the internet. Lambert is of course correct in pointing out that both Congress and the courts have recognized the privacy interest in one’s Social Security number. See, e.g., Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. § 552a (providing restrictions on the disclosure of Social Security numbers); Sherman v. U.S. Dep’t of the No. 07-3154 Lambert v. Hartman et al. Page 8 Army, 244 F.3d 357, 365 (5th Cir. 2001) (noting, in the context of a Freedom of Information Act request, that “an individual’s informational privacy interest in his or her SSN [Social Security number] is substantial”); In re Crawford, 194 F.3d 954, 958 (9th Cir. 1999) (recognizing that “the indiscriminate public disclosure” of Social Security numbers might implicate the constitutional right to privacy, but concluding that any interest in nondisclosure was outweighed by the government’s interest in making bankruptcy documents available to the general public). The Sixth Circuit, however, has developed and applied a different approach to assessing informational privacy claims. As discussed above, that approach requires that the asserted privacy interest implicate a fundamental right. See Bloch, 156 F.3d at 684; DeSanti, 653 F.2d at 1090 (holding that the disclosure of juveniles’ records to juvenile court personnel did not implicate the plaintiffs’ fundamental rights); Kallstrom, 136 F.3d at 1061-62 (explaining that the DeSanti court “rejected the notion of a general constitutional right of nondisclosure of personal information against which the governmental action must be weighed”). We are bound by those decisions unless this court sitting en banc or the Supreme Court holds otherwise, and Lambert’s argument must fail for that reason. See Salmi v. Sec’y of Health & Human Servs., 774 F.2d 685, 689 (6th Cir.1985) (explaining that the decision of a prior panel “remains controlling authority unless an inconsistent decision of the United States Supreme Court requires modification of the decision or this Court sitting en banc overrules the prior decision”).