Court Opinion

ID: 9410539
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-21 18:00:51.775502+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:58.390365
License: Public Domain

FOR PUBLICATION

  UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
       FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

NORA PHILLIPS; ERIKA                     No. 21-55768
PINHEIRO; NATHANIEL
DENNISON,                                  D.C. No.
                                        2:19-cv-06338-
             Plaintiffs-Appellants,       SVW-JEM

 v.
                                           OPINION
U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER
PROTECTION; MARK MORGAN;
UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION
AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT;
MATTHEW ALBENCE; FEDERAL
BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION;
CHRISTOPHER WRAY,

             Defendants-Appellees.

      Appeal from the United States District Court
          for the Central District of California
      Stephen V. Wilson, District Judge, Presiding

        Argued and Submitted February 9, 2023
                 Pasadena, California

                  Filed July 21, 2023
2            PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.

    Before: Mary M. Schroeder, Richard C. Tallman, and
             Sandra S. Ikuta, Circuit Judges.

                  Opinion by Judge Ikuta;
               Concurrence by Judge Schroeder

                          SUMMARY*

                             Standing

    The panel affirmed the district court’s summary
judgment in favor of the government in an action seeking to
expunge plaintiffs’ records that were created by several
federal agencies as part of a surveillance program.
    The surveillance program gathered information on
individuals that the agencies believed were associated with
a migrant caravan approaching the southern border of the
United States. The panel held that the retention of the
allegedly illegally obtained records at issue, without more,
did not give rise to a concrete injury necessary for standing,
and plaintiffs had not shown that the retention gave rise to
any other sort of harm that constituted a concrete injury.
   The panel rejected plaintiffs’ central argument that the
government’s retention of illegally obtained information
about them was per se an injury-in-fact. Under Supreme
Court precedent, the retention of records alone does not
constitute a concrete injury, and plaintiffs must assert that

*
 This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
           PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.          3

such retention gives rise to a tangible harm or material risk
of future tangible harm or bears a close relationship to harms
traditionally recognized as providing a basis for lawsuits in
American courts.
    The panel rejected plaintiffs’ alternative argument that
the government’s retention of records allegedly obtained in
violation of their First and Fourth Amendment rights
constituted a concrete and ongoing injury under that
framework. The evidence did not show that the government
was using or will use the records to investigate plaintiffs or
prevent them from crossing the border or that a third party
will obtain the records and use them to plaintiffs’ detriment.
Plaintiffs had not shown that retention of the type of
information contained in the records could give rise to a
common law tort claim. Finally, plaintiffs failed to explain
(or identify supporting authority) why retention of the
records was an ongoing violation of their constitutional
rights.
    Concurring, Judge Schroeder observed that plaintiffs did
not challenge any governmental conduct in obtaining the
underlying information. Nor could they, because the
information came from publicly available sources or existing
law enforcement databases.
4             PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.

                              COUNSEL

Mohammad Tajsar (argued), ACLU Foundation of Southern
California, Los Angeles, California; R. Alexander Pilmer,
Kirkland and Ellis LLP, Los Angeles, California; for
Plaintiffs-Appellants.
Thomas G. Pulham (argued), Michael S. Raab, and Joshua
M. Salzman, Appellate Staff Attorneys, Civil Division; Lisa
Olson; Stephanie S. Christensen, Acting United States
Attorney; Brian M. Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant
Attorney General; United States Department of Justice;
Washington, D.C.; for Defendants-Appellees.

                               OPINION

IKUTA, Circuit Judge:

    Nora Phillips, Erika Pinheiro, and Nathaniel Dennison
(collectively, plaintiffs) seek to expunge records that were
created by several federal agencies as part of a surveillance
program in 2018–2019, arguing that the collection and
retention of these records violated their constitutional rights.
The district court granted summary judgment to the
government, holding that plaintiffs lacked Article III
standing to seek expungement.1 Because the retention of the
allegedly illegally obtained records at issue, without more,

1
 Plaintiffs also challenge the district court’s denial of their requests for
additional discovery. We affirm the district court’s denial in the
memorandum disposition filed contemporaneously with this opinion. --
F. App’x-- (9th Cir. 2023).
            PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.          5

does not give rise to a concrete injury necessary for standing,
and plaintiffs have not shown that the retention gives rise to
any other sort of harm that constitutes a concrete injury, we
affirm.
                               I
    The following background facts are undisputed. From
2018 through 2019, a migrant caravan comprised of tens of
thousands of people approached the southern border of the
United States. In response, Customs and Border Protection
(CBP) organized a surveillance program, called Operation
Secure Line, in coordination with Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), as well as with “state and local law enforcement
partners, non-law enforcement governmental organizations,
and Mexican law enforcement officials.”
    As part of Operation Secure Line, CBP gathered
information on individuals it believed were associated with
the migrant caravan.       CBP used both open source
information available to the public, such as media reports
and social media pages, as well as preexisting law
enforcement databases, which were not publicly available.
    In connection with its effort to provide border security
officers with information about the caravan, CBP used the
information it gathered to prepare a PowerPoint presentation
with the names, photographs, date of birth, and citizenship
status of 67 individuals. The presentation also indicated
each person’s alleged role in the caravan and whether the
person had been interviewed by government officials. A
CBP official presented the PowerPoint document at a weekly
command staff meeting in January 2019. Subsequently, an
ICE agent who was not involved in the caravan response
6            PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.

discovered the presentation on a government computer
system and leaked it to the media.
    The three plaintiffs here are three of the 67 individuals
named in the PowerPoint document. Each of these
individuals was stopped by border officials in 2019 when
attempting to cross the United States-Mexico border. There
is no evidence linking their encounters to their inclusion in
the PowerPoint document or other records maintained by the
government. Phillips and Pinheiro are attorneys employed
by Al Otro Lado, an organization that “provide[s] services
to immigrants.” In January 2019, Phillips attempted to take
a family trip to Mexico. Upon her arrival at the airport in
Guadalajara, Mexico, Mexican immigration officials
informed her that there was an alert on her passport. Two
hours later, she was informed that Mexican immigration
would not permit her to enter Mexico, and she returned to
the United States the following morning. Phillips did not
identify any evidence that the United States government was
responsible for the alert. After this incident, Phillips stated
that she did not travel to Mexico for several months for
health reasons. Then in August 2019, Phillips attempted to
travel to Mexico at the San Ysidro port of entry and was
turned away by Mexican immigration officials due to an
alert on her passport. She was permitted to enter Mexico the
next day, and was approved for one-year temporary
residency by the Mexican government. CBP subsequently
approved her application for a SENTRI pass.2 Other than

2
  SENTRI (Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection)
“allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers upon
arrival in the United States.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection,
Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection (Jan. 4, 2022),
https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/sentri.
           PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.        7

the January and August 2019 incidents, Phillips has never
been detained, questioned, or searched while crossing the
United States-Mexico border.
    Erika Pinheiro’s experience was similar. In January
2019, Pinheiro was stopped by Mexican border officials and
denied entry to Mexico because there was an alert on her
passport. Ten minutes after the encounter, she entered
Mexico through the car lane without incident. In April 2019,
Pinheiro was granted temporary residence status in Mexico.
In February 2020, Mexican border officials “directed her to
secondary inspection, where her vehicle was sent through a
large scanning device,” and asked her “a few questions
before admitting her to [Mexico].” And in March 2020, she
was granted permanent resident status in Mexico, where she
currently lives. She crossed the border without incident
nearly 70 times from 2018 through 2020.
    The third plaintiff, Dennison, was present during an
incident extending from the evening of December 31, 2018
to the morning of January 1, 2019. During that period,
migrants attempted to climb over the border wall and
assaulted border patrol agents by throwing rocks at them.
Dennison took photographs and video footage of the incident
and spoke to some of the migrants. The government
suspected that Dennison had been involved in organizing or
providing assistance to the migrants during this incident.
Later in January, when Dennison crossed the border into the
United States, he was detained for about six hours and
interviewed “about his work with the migrant caravan.” He
was then permitted to enter the United States. From
September 2019 to September 2020, Dennison crossed the
United States-Mexico border over 100 times. He was
stopped and questioned only once, in January 2020, when he
crossed the border from the United States to Mexico, stopped
8           PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.

less than 50 yards from the border, asked for directions, and
immediately drove back to reenter the United States. Upon
Dennison’s reentry, a CBP officer asked him a few questions
and searched Dennison’s vehicle. The whole interaction
took approximately 25 minutes.
    Plaintiffs filed suit against the federal agencies involved
in Operation Secure Line (CBP, FBI, and ICE) and several
officials in their official capacity (collectively, “the
government”). The operative Second Amended Complaint
(SAC) first alleged that the government violated all three
plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights of free speech and free
association because the government “collected and
maintain[s] records describing Plaintiffs’ First Amendment-
protected activity,” namely their conduct relating to
“charitably supporting migrants traveling through Mexico to
seek asylum in the United States.” Second, the SAC alleged
that the government violated Dennison’s Fourth
Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and
seizures because the government “unlawfully and without
legal justification intrusively seized . . . Dennison while he
attempted to cross into the United States on January 10,
2019,” and, as a result, the creation and maintenance of “all
records which contain information gathered about him as a
result of [the] unlawful seizure and interrogation” likewise
violated the Fourth Amendment. Finally the SAC alleged
that the government violated all three plaintiffs’ rights under
the federal Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, a claim that is not
raised in this appeal. The SAC sought an injunction ordering
the government “to expunge all records unlawfully collected
and maintained about [p]laintiffs, and any information
              PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.                      9

derived from that unlawfully obtained information,” as well
as other injunctive and declaratory relief.3
    The district court granted the government’s motion for
summary judgment, on the grounds that plaintiffs lacked
standing to seek prospective injunctive relief and
expungement of the records with respect to both their First
and Fourth Amendment claims. Plaintiffs timely appealed
this holding. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291,
and we review the district court’s grant of summary
judgment de novo, see Whitewater Draw Nat. Res.
Conservation Dist. v. Mayorkas, 5 F.4th 997, 1007 (9th Cir.
2021).
                                     II
    “[T]hose who seek to invoke the jurisdiction of the
federal courts must satisfy the threshold requirement
imposed by Article III of the Constitution by alleging an
actual case or controversy.” City of Los Angeles v. Lyons,
461 U.S. 95, 101 (1983). To do so, plaintiffs bear the burden
to establish standing by showing that an injury-in-fact was
caused by the challenged conduct and can be redressed by a
favorable judicial decision. See Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife,
504 U.S. 555, 560–61 (1992).
     To establish an injury-in-fact, plaintiffs must establish
“an invasion of a legally protected interest which
is . . . concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent,

3
  Dennison also sought damages with respect to his claims under the
Privacy Act for income allegedly lost from inability to travel “without
fear of reprisal” and his inability to return to Mexico to collect his camera
and footage. Because the Privacy Act claim is not on appeal, we do not
consider his damages claim.
10          PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.

not ‘conjectural’ or ‘hypothetical.’” Id. at 560 (citation
omitted). An injury is “concrete” if it “actually exist[s].”
Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 340 (2016). Tangible
injuries, like physical harms or monetary losses, are
concrete. See TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 141 S. Ct. 2190,
2204 (2021). But “[a] concrete injury need not be tangible.”
Patel v. Facebook, Inc., 932 F.3d 1264, 1270 (9th Cir. 2019).
As explained by the Supreme Court, an intangible injury
may be concrete if it presents a material risk of tangible harm
or “has a close relationship to a harm that has traditionally
been regarded as providing a basis for a lawsuit in English
or American courts,” like common law torts or certain
constitutional violations. Spokeo, 578 U.S. at 340–41; see
also TransUnion, 141 S. Ct. at 2204.
    “[A] plaintiff must demonstrate standing separately for
each form of relief sought.” Friends of the Earth, Inc. v.
Laidlaw Env’t Serv. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 185 (2000).
A past harm may “confer standing to seek injunctive relief if
the plaintiff . . . continue[s] to suffer adverse effects.”
Mayfield v. United States, 599 F.3d 964, 970 (9th Cir. 2010).
However, “a plaintiff who has standing to seek damages for
a past injury . . . does not necessarily have standing to seek
prospective relief.” Id. at 969. To the extent a plaintiff seeks
relief for a possible future injury, that injury must be
“certainly impending,” Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568
U.S. 398, 409 (2013) (emphasis omitted) (citation omitted),
or there must be a “‘substantial risk’ that the harm will
occur,” Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, 573 U.S. 149,
158 (2014) (citation omitted).
                              III
    Plaintiffs’ central argument is that the government’s
retention of illegally obtained information about them is per
              PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.                    11

se an injury-in-fact.4 Plaintiffs first contend that the
government unlawfully obtained the records. They argue
that the creation of the records violated their “First
Amendment right to be free of unlawful government scrutiny
based on their associations and political expressions.” They
also claim that at least one record was created using
information collected during Dennison’s January 11, 2019
allegedly unlawful detention, which plaintiffs assert violated
the Fourth Amendment.
    Second, according to plaintiffs, the government’s
retention of records collected in violation of plaintiffs’
constitutional rights constitutes an ongoing injury that
satisfies standing. Therefore, plaintiffs contend they need
not demonstrate ongoing or future risk of an additional
injury attributable to the retention of the illegally obtained
records. In their reply brief, however, plaintiffs argue that
they have also established a likelihood of a future injury
from the retention of the records.
                                    A
    Under Supreme Court precedent, the retention of records
alone does not constitute a concrete injury, and plaintiffs
must assert that such retention gives rise to a tangible harm
or material risk of future tangible harm, or bears “a close
relationship to harms traditionally recognized as providing a
basis for lawsuits in American courts,” like “reputational
harms, disclosure of private information, and intrusion upon
seclusion” or those “specified by the Constitution itself.”
TransUnion, 141 S. Ct. at 2204; see also Spokeo, 578 U.S.

4
  Because plaintiffs claim they have standing due to the government’s
retention of records alone, they do not argue that the nature of the alleged
underlying constitutional violation affects our analysis.
12            PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.

at 340–41. In TransUnion, plaintiffs claimed that a credit
reporting agency violated federal law by failing to follow
“reasonable procedures to ensure the accuracy of
[information in] their credit files,” 141 S. Ct. at 2200, and
wrongly identified them “as potential terrorists, drug
traffickers, or serious criminals,” id. at 2209. The plaintiffs
attempted to certify a class that included members whose
inaccurate information had been disseminated to potential
creditors and members whose information had merely been
retained by the credit reporting agency. Id. at 2200. The
Supreme Court held that class members whose information
had not been disseminated failed to establish Article III
standing to challenge the credit reporting agency’s retention
of their inaccurate credit reports.5 See id. at 2200, 2209.
First, the plaintiffs did not demonstrate that the inaccurate
credit information allegedly created in violation of federal
law posed a tangible harm to the plaintiffs’ finances in the
future. See id. at 2212. Specifically, they “did not
demonstrate a sufficient likelihood that their individual
credit information would be requested by a third-party
business and provided by TransUnion” or that “TransUnion
would otherwise intentionally or accidentally release their
information to third parties.” Id. Second, the credit
reporting agency’s mere retention of the plaintiffs’
inaccurate credit reports was not itself an injury that had a

5
  Plaintiffs attempt to distinguish TransUnion from their case by arguing
that the plaintiffs in that suit sought damages rather than expungement.
But the Court explained that regardless whether plaintiffs seek
retrospective relief (in the form of damages) or prospective relief (like
an injunction or expungement), the injury must be concrete, and mere
retention of inaccurate credit reports is not a concrete injury. 141 S. Ct.
at 2210.
            PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.           13

“historical or common-law analog” and therefore did not
itself qualify as an injury-in-fact. Id. at 2209.
     This standing analysis is applicable here. “Article III
standing requires a concrete injury even in the context of a
statutory violation.” Spokeo, 578 U.S. at 341. Thus,
“deprivation of a procedural right” in violation of a statute
“is insufficient to create Article III standing” “without some
concrete interest that is affected by the deprivation.”
Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 555 U.S. 488, 496 (2009). Put
differently, “for Article III purposes, it is not enough for a
plaintiff to allege that a defendant has violated a right created
by a statute; we must still ascertain whether the plaintiff
suffered a concrete injury-in-fact due to the violation.”
Patel, 932 F.3d at 1270. This analysis does not change if the
information at issue was collected in violation of a plaintiff’s
constitutional rights rather than a statutory violation as in
TransUnion. Unless the retention of unlawfully obtained or
created information amounts to the type of concrete injury
recognized by the Supreme Court, it is insufficient to
establish standing. See infra Section III.B.
    In arguing against this conclusion, plaintiffs assert that
we have previously held that the retention of illegally
obtained records, without more, constitutes a concrete
injury, citing Norman-Bloodsaw v. Lawrence Berkely
Laboratory, 135 F.3d 1260, 1274–75 (9th Cir. 1998),
Mayfield, 599 F.3d at 969–72, and Fazaga v. FBI, 965 F.3d
1015, 1027, 1030, 1054–55 (9th Cir. 2020), rev’d and
remanded on other grounds, 142 S. Ct. 1051 (2022). This
contention does not withstand scrutiny. Where we have held
that the retention of illegally obtained records resulted in a
concrete injury, we have always identified something
beyond retention alone that resulted in an injury of the sort
recognized by the Supreme Court, such as a material risk of
14          PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.

future tangible harm, a violation of the common law right to
privacy, or a cognizable constitutional violation. See
Spokeo, 578 U.S. at 340–41; TransUnion, 141 S. Ct. at 2204.
    In Norman-Bloodsaw and Mayfield, the plaintiffs alleged
an ongoing injury that involved an invasion of privacy, an
injury identified by the Supreme Court as concrete. See
Spokeo, 578 U.S. at 341. In Norman-Bloodsaw, plaintiffs
alleged that their employer, a public university laboratory,
took their blood and urine to test for conditions such as
syphilis, sickle cell anemia, and pregnancy, without their
knowledge or consent, in violation of Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and
their constitutional right to privacy. 135 F.3d at 1264–65.
The university laboratory’s retention of this “undisputedly
intimate medical information,” id. at 1275, implicated
information in which the plaintiffs enjoyed “the highest
expectations of privacy,” id. at 1270. Under these
circumstances, we held that the plaintiffs suffered “a
continuing ‘irreparable injury’ for purposes of equitable
relief.” Id. at 1275. In Mayfield, the government unlawfully
searched and seized documents from the plaintiff’s home,
including confidential client files, bank records, and
“summaries of confidential conversations between husband
and wife, parents and children.” 599 F.3d at 969 n.6. The
plaintiff argued that “the retention by government agencies
of materials derived from the seizures in his home and office
constitute[d] an ongoing violation of [the plaintiff’s]
constitutional right to privacy.” Id. at 970. We agreed that
the plaintiff “suffer[ed] a present, on-going injury due to the
government’s continued retention of derivative material
from [this] seizure.” Id. at 971 (citation omitted).
   Norman-Bloodsaw and Mayfield are consistent with
many other cases in which we held that the plaintiffs had
            PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.          15

standing to challenge the retention of illegally obtained
records because the retention amounted to an invasion of
their privacy interests. In Campbell v. Facebook, Inc., we
held that parties had standing to sue a social media company
that captured, read, and used information in their private
messages in violation of various state and federal statutes,
because there was “a straightforward analogue between” the
protections codified in those statutes against viewing or
using private communications and the common law privacy
tort of “unreasonable intrusion upon the seclusion of
another.” 951 F.3d 1106, 1112, 1117–18 (9th Cir. 2020).
Therefore, a violation of those statutes gave rise to a concrete
injury. Id.; see also Nayab v. Cap. One Bank (USA), N.A.,
942 F.3d 480, 491–92 (9th Cir. 2019) (holding that “[w]hen
a third party obtains [a] consumer’s credit report in violation
of 15 U.S.C. § 1681b(f),” the consumer suffers a concrete
injury because the violation is analogous to a “harm that has
traditionally been regarded as providing a basis for a lawsuit:
intrusion upon seclusion (one form of the tort of invasion of
privacy)”); Patel, 932 F.3d at 1268, 1273 (holding that a
violation of a state law prohibiting the collection, use, and
storage of a person’s biometric identifiers from photographs
constituted a concrete injury because it was analogous to
violations of the right to privacy “actionable at common
law”). In none of these cases did we hold that the plaintiffs
had standing due to the retention of records alone.
    Plaintiffs’ reliance on Fazaga is also misplaced. Fazaga
did not address whether the plaintiffs had standing. In that
case, the government collected and retained documents that
included the contents of surreptitiously recorded
conversations held in prayer halls of mosques, an Imam’s
chambers, and “other parts of the mosque not open to the
public” as well as the inside of individuals’ homes, in
16           PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.

violation of multiple constitutional and statutory provisions.
965 F.3d at 1027, 1030, 1054–55. Fazaga held that federal
courts could order expungement of records to vindicate
constitutional rights, and therefore the injunctive remedy of
expungement was available to vindicate the plaintiffs’
Fourth Amendment rights in that case. Id. at 1055 & n.36.
But Fazaga did not address the question whether the
retention of records collected in violation of the plaintiffs’
constitutional rights in that case gave the plaintiffs standing.6
    By contrast, when considering a plaintiff’s standing to
challenge the retention of records collected in violation of
constitutional rights, we have carefully identified a concrete
and ongoing injury. In Scott v. Rosenberg, for instance, a
plaintiff claimed that the government’s request for a record
of the plaintiff’s donations to his church violated his free
exercise rights under the First Amendment. 702 F.2d 1263,
1267–68 (9th Cir. 1983). We held that the government’s
request constituted an injury-in-fact because an undisputed
tenet of the plaintiff’s faith was that his giving had to be
secret in order to be efficacious. Id. We explained that if the
government had “already procured the requested records, the
alleged injury may be actual,” and if the government had
“not yet received the documents, but continue[d] to threaten

6
  MacPherson v. IRS, another decision relied on by plaintiffs, is not on
point because it did not discuss standing, 803 F.2d 479, 484 (9th Cir.
1986), but rather addressed whether the collection of certain records
violated the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(7), which precludes an
agency that maintains a system of records from maintaining records
“describing how any individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First
Amendment unless expressly authorized by statute or by the individual
about whom the record is maintained or unless pertinent to and within
the scope of an authorized law enforcement activity,” MacPherson, 803
F.2d at 480–81 (citing § 552a(e)(7)).
            PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.         17

the church with a loss of its license for failure to produce
them, the alleged injury [was] at least threatened.” Id. In
light of the burden placed by the government on the
plaintiff’s sincerely held religious belief, the plaintiff
“properly allege[d] injury from disclosure of his donations.”
Id. “Therefore, the injury aspect of Article III standing [was]
met.” Id.
    In sum, there is no support for plaintiffs’ claim that the
government’s unlawful collection and retention of records
alone gives rise to a concrete injury for purposes of standing.
In every case where we (or the Supreme Court) held that the
plaintiffs had standing, the collection or retention caused a
concrete harm of the sort the Supreme Court has recognized.
                              B
    In light of this conclusion, we turn to plaintiffs’
alternative argument that the government’s retention of the
records allegedly obtained in violation of their First and
Fourth Amendment rights constitutes a concrete and
ongoing injury under the framework discussed above.
    First, plaintiffs argue that the government’s retention of
the records constitutes a concrete, ongoing injury because it
“subject[s] them to an unncecessary risk of future detention
and unwarranted government scrutiny.” We disagree. The
evidence in this case does not show that the government is
using or will use the records in the future to investigate
plaintiffs or prevent them from crossing the border or that a
third party will obtain the records and use them to plaintiffs’
detriment.
    Acknowledging the lack of support in the record,
plaintiffs argue that they need not predict how the records
maintained by the government are likely to injure plaintiffs
18          PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.

in the future. Rather, relying on Flint v. Dennison, 488 F.3d
816, 823–24 (9th Cir. 2007), they contend, it is enough if the
records “may” have some effect in the future. This argument
is contrary to Supreme Court precedent, which requires a
plaintiff to show that a “risk of harm is sufficiently imminent
and substantial.” TransUnion, 141 S. Ct. at 2210.
    Nor does Flint support plaintiffs’ claim. Flint addressed
whether a student’s suit against a state university for
violation of his First Amendment free speech rights was
moot after the student graduated. 488 F.3d at 823. We held
that the case was not moot because the student was seeking
both declaratory relief and injunctive relief to remove
disciplinary records from his file. Id. at 824. Because the
student’s record contained evidence of disciplinary
sanctions, which “may jeopardize the student’s future
employment or college career,” we concluded that we
retained the ability to “grant relief in a legally significant
way,” by ordering their expungement, and therefore the case
was not moot. Id.
    Flint is not on point here. First, Flint acknowledged that
we apply different standards to a mootness inquiry than we
do to a standing inquiry, because “mootness, unlike
standing, is a flexible justiciability doctrine.” Id. Therefore,
Flint did not consider whether the retention of disciplinary
records constituted a concrete harm or an ongoing injury or
gave rise to an imminent risk of injury. Even had we
considered that issue, we may well have determined that the
retention of the disciplinary records at issue in Flint is
analogous to a “reputational harm[],” which has been
“traditionally recognized as providing a basis for lawsuits in
American courts,” and therefore constituted a concrete and
ongoing injury as discussed above. TransUnion, 141 S. Ct.
at 2204; see also Kennedy v. Warren, 66 F.4th 1199, 1206
           PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.         19

(9th Cir. 2023) (“Reputational harm stemming from an
unretracted government action is a sufficiently concrete
injury for standing purposes.”).
    Next, plaintiffs do not show that the type of information
contained in the records—names, birthdays, social security
numbers, occupations, addresses, social media profiles, and
political views and associations—is so sensitive that
another’s access to that information “would be highly
offensive to a reasonable person,” Restatement (Second) of
Torts § 652B, or otherwise gives rise to reputational harm or
injury to privacy interests. A person’s “name, address, date
and place of birth, place of employment, . . . and social
security number” are not “generally considered ‘private.’”
Russell v. Gregoire, 124 F.3d 1079, 1082, 1094 (9th Cir.
1997) (citation omitted). This identifying information is also
a far cry from the types of information that we have held are
so sensitive that another’s retention of the information is
analogous to tortious conduct. See Nayab, 942 F.3d at 487–
88, 492 (holding that obtaining another’s consumer credit
report is analogous to intrusion upon seclusion because “a
credit report can contain highly personal information”
including “information ‘bearing on a consumer’s credit
worthiness, credit standing, credit capacity, character,
general reputation, personal characteristics, or mode of
living’” (citation omitted)); Patel, 932 F.3d at 1273
(explaining that scanning a person’s face to create a face
template that can be used to identify that individual in other
images, “determine when the individual was present at a
specific location,” and “used to unlock the face recognition
lock on that individual’s cell phone” “invades an
individual’s private affairs”). Indeed, the record shows that
many of the records were created with “open source
information available to the public,” like media reports and
20         PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.

social media pages, as well as information already collected
and retained in other law enforcement databases (which
plaintiffs do not challenge).
    Finally, plaintiffs do not explain (or identify supporting
authority) why retention of the records here is an ongoing
violation of their constitutional rights. See Scott, 702 F.2d
at 1268; see also TransUnion, 141 S. Ct. at 2204 (noting that
concrete harms include those “specified by the Constitution
itself”). To the extent that plaintiffs argue that the
government’s retention of the records will chill their First
Amendment rights of free speech and free association,
“[a]llegations of a subjective ‘chill’ are not an adequate
substitution for a claim of specific present objective harm or
a threat of specific future harm.” Clapper, 568 U.S. at 418
(citation omitted); see also Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1, 10–
11 (1972). Thus, plaintiffs fail to show a “risk of real harm”
from the government’s retention of the records. Spokeo, 578
U.S. at 341.
    Because plaintiffs fail to establish that the government’s
retention of the records constitutes a concrete harm, we hold
that they lack standing to seek expungement of the records.
     AFFIRMED.
           PHILLIPS V. U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROT.         21

SCHROEDER, Circuit Judge, concurring:

    Appellants contend in this appeal that the government’s
retention of records concerning their border crossings may
cause them harm in the future and they seek expungement of
the records. They do not challenge any governmental
conduct in obtaining the underlying information. Nor could
they, because the information came from publicly available
sources or existing law enforcement databases.
    This case is thus unlike Fazaga v. Federal Bureau of
Investigation, 965 F.3d 1015, 1054 (9th Cir. 2020), where
the Plaintiffs claimed the government obtained the
information by means of warrantless surveillance that
violated Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights, and where standing
was not even questioned. Nor is there anything of a medical
or other sensitive, personal nature about the information that
would make this case resemble the situation in Norman-
Bloodsaw v. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, 135 F.3d 1260
(9th Cir. 1998).
     As the district court correctly recognized, there is no
ongoing injury here, or any likelihood of future injury
attributable to the government’s conduct. With these
observations, I join the majority opinion.