Court Opinion

ID: 9548478
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:04:07.126658+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:01.886373
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent.
Although I agree with the majority that the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) may constitutionally require applicants for driver’s licenses to submit fingerprints, I cannot join either in their unconvincing analysis or in their novel disposition. I do not believe that the DMV’s fingerprint data are made confidential by the Information Practices Act of 1977 (the Act) (Civ. Code, § 1798 et seq.): the plain language of the relevant provisions of the Act explicitly states otherwise. At the same time, I do not believe that the consequent nonconfidentiality of such data will inevitably compromise the applicant’s right to privacy.
I yield to no one in demanding respect for the tranquility of the fireside and the inviolability of the person. The problem with the reasoning of the duplicative opinions of the Chief Justice is that neither the hearth nor the person of this individual would actually be threatened, less still violated, by nonconfidentiality of her DMV fingerprint records: at most, plaintiff merely suspects that if the DMV does not keep her thumbprint secret something possibly adverse might happen to someone, by act of someone in some authoritative position, at some vague time in the future. These are hardly the definitive ingredients out of which a judgment can or should be fashioned. More important, such speculation is a precarious hook on which to hang a decision questioning the constitutionality of a legislative plan founded on a rational state policy.
I would hold simply that the fingerprint requirement does not violate due process under the appropriate standard of substantive review, i.e., the rational basis test, and that in the present context, in which abuse or misuse of the fingerprint data has not been demonstrated or even alleged, the requirement does not constitute a significant invasion of an applicant’s right to privacy. Rather than expatiating gratuitously on the abstract right to privacy in the computer age, I would refrain from premature conclusions *205about potential misuse, yet leave open the possibility of a future challenge to any actual and specific abuse of fingerprint records by the DMV, other governmental agencies, or private enterprises.
My disagreement with the Chief Justice’s twin opinions is thus twofold. I dispute her strained exercise in statutory construction; and I reject her warning that if the construction is circumvented, the privacy interests of driver’s license applicants will inevitably be imperiled.
First, the majority argue unpersuasively that the drafters of the Act intended to include the fingerprints of applicants for driver’s licenses among the protected “personal information” that must be held confidential by the DMV. I agree that under the Act fingerprints fall in the category of “personal information” that “identifies or describes” an individual, because it is part of the “physical description” of that individual. (Civ. Code, § 1798.3, subd. (a).) However, the Act explicitly permits disclosure of any such personal information “Pursuant to Article 3 (commencing with Section 1800) of Chapter 1 of Division 2 of the Vehicle Code.” (Id., at p. 1798.24, subd. (m).)
One of the cited sections of the Vehicle Code expressly declares that the information in an application for a driver’s license “shall be open to public inspection during office hours.” (Veh. Code, § 1808.) The only exceptions provided by the Legislature to this broad right of public access are for the home addresses of certain officials (§ 1808.4), records relating to the physical or mental condition of any person and convictions of offenses involving controlled substances (§ 1808.5), and records of certain convictions (§ 1808.6) and dismissals (§ 1808.7) of traffic offenses. Fingerprints, of course, are not expressly listed in any of these limited exceptions.
The majority attempt to fill this gap by calling a fingerprint a “physical condition.” They concede, however, that heretofore the quoted phrase has consistently been understood to refer to medical records. (55 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 122 (1972); 26 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 136 (1955).) In a virtuoso feat of bootstrapping, they argue that they are constrained to interpret “physical condition” to include fingerprints because to do otherwise would assertedly violate the state constitutional right to privacy. They also claim their construction furthers the purpose of the provision to avoid infringing on an applicant’s privacy rights.
I cannot see how fingerprints, any more than an applicant’s age and sex, weight and height, hair and eye color, can be understood to be a “physical condition” within the meaning of the statute. The information protected by that phrase is, rather, the medical results of tests for impaired visual acuity *206or hearing, alcoholism, drug dependency, and diseases or disabilities affecting an applicant’s mental and physical fitness to operate a motor vehicle. (See Veh. Code, §§ 12804, 12805.) By contrast, fingerprints relate only to identification: like sex, height, and eye color, they have no bearing whatever on the applicant’s ability or fitness to operate a motor vehicle. It follows they are not the kind of medical information that the Legislature regarded as too private to be made available to the public. “When statutory language is thus clear and unambiguous there is no need for construction, and courts should not indulge in it.” (Solberg v. Superior Court (1977) 19 Cal.3d 182, 198 [137 Cal.Rptr. 460, 561 P.2d 1148].)
Moreover, I do not share the majority’s fear that any dissemination of fingerprints by the DMV is necessarily unconstitutional. The DMV fingerprint files have proved invaluable, for example, to coroners for identifying deceased persons and to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s disaster teams for identifying victims of major disasters. Such uses of the fingerprint files serve the individual and his family as well as the public, and offend no reasonable interest in privacy. The conduct of the DMV in this regard is not covert or secret, and does not constitute the kind of governmental intrusion we condemned in White v. Davis (1975) 13 Cal.3d 757, 775 [120 Cal.Rptr. 94, 533 P.2d 222],
I do not question the sincerity of this petitioner. Nor am I unaware that some thoughtful citizens have an aversion to any fingerprinting or photographing by the government; many of them analogize such procedures to the identity cards required by repressive foreign regimes. There are, however, significant distinctions. In those foreign regimes a universal identification card must be carried at all times and displayed to any government functionary upon demand; it is often a tool for achieving Orwellian political control. By contrast, a California driver’s license need not be in anyone’s possession at any time, except when the licensee is actually operating a motor vehicle on a highway. (Veh. Code, § 12951.)
Despite the exaggerated apprehensions of the Chief Justice, fingerprints do not convey the type of information that would make their collection or dissemination constitutionally suspect. They do not divulge the history, thoughts, habits, political views, activities, or financial affairs of a person, as might an account of credit card purchases (People v. Blair (1979) 25 Cal.3d 640, 652 [159 Cal.Rptr. 818, 602 P.2d 738]), a bank statement (Burrows v. Superior Court (1974) 13 Cal.3d 238, 247 [118 Cal.Rptr. 166, 529 P.2d 590]), bank loan records and customer information (Valley Bank of Nevada v. Superior Court (1975) 15 Cal.3d 652, 657-658 [125 Cal.Rptr. 553, 542 P.2d 977]), or an academic transcript (Porten v. University of San Francisco (1976) 64 Cal.App.3d 825 [134 Cal.Rptr. 839]). To the contrary, *207a fingerprint is merely an additional means of identifying the applicant, like age, sex, weight, height, hair and eye color—all of which, I note, this petitioner is perfectly willing to reveal. As the court explained in Thom v. New York Stock Exchange (S.D.N.Y. 1969) 306 F.Supp. 1002, 1011: “Possession of an individual’s fingerprints does not create an atmosphere of general surveillance or indicate that they will be used for an impermissible purpose. Fingerprints provide a simple means of identification; no more.”
If and when this or any other petitioner can demonstrate—or even convincingly allege—improper use of personal data by a state agency, I will be out in front with my colleagues in insisting on protecting the privacy of all Californians. In the meantime, I am unwilling to join the Chief Justice in broadly assuming, without proof or allegation, the worst possible scenario: that agencies of our state government will inevitably and deliberately violate the constitutional rights of this petitioner.
Lucas, J., concurred.