BILL ANALYSIS AB 2097 Page 1 Date of Hearing: April 19, 2010 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION Mike Eng, Chair AB 2097 (Miller) - As Introduced: February 18, 2010 SUBJECT : Home address confidentiality SUMMARY : Requires persons requesting confidentiality of their Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) records to provide a current employment address. Specifically, this bill : 1)Requires a person who, by virtue of his or her profession qualifies for special confidentiality protections, requests DMV to exercise these protections, to provide DMV with a current employment address for purposes of processing the service and collection of a traffic, parking, or toll road violation. 2)Suspends the applicable statutory time periods for processing the service and collection of traffic, parking, or toll road violations until DMV provides the law enforcement agency, governmental agency, or issuing agency with the person's current employment address. 3)Provides that the use of a person's current employment address, when that person's home address is confidential, satisfies the requirement of the person's home address for purposes of serving a notice to appear or a notice of violation. 4)Requires a person who has requested the confidentiality of his or her home address to notify DMV of any change in his or her employment address within 10 days. 5)Requires DMV to refuse to renew the registration of a vehicle if the person who has been mailed a notice of delinquent parking violation or failure to pay a traffic citation and the processing agency has filed or electronically transmitted to DMV an itemization of the unpaid parking or traffic citation penalty, including the administrative fee, and the vehicle owner or lessee has not paid the penalty and administrative fee. EXISTING LAW : AB 2097 Page 2 1)Lists 24 classes of persons primarily in law enforcement fields, plus the spouses and children of those persons, and allows them to request that their home addresses be held confidential by DMV. The home address of these persons may only be disclosed to a court, a law enforcement agency, the state Board of Equalization (BOE), or any governmental agency legally required to be furnished that information. 2)Affords confidentiality for the home addresses of all individuals contained within DMV records. These provisions similarly allow for disclosure to courts, law enforcement agencies, and other governmental agencies but also allow for limited disclosure to financial institutions, insurance companies, attorneys, vehicle manufacturers, and persons doing statistical research. FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown COMMENTS : Until 1989, DMV records were considered public records, unless state law specifically made them confidential, as was the case for peace officers' addresses. Therefore, until 1989, home addresses were not considered confidential, and any person who gave a reason that DMV deemed legitimate and could present to DMV a person's driver's license number or license plate number could obtain address information on that individual. In 1989, actress Rebecca Schaeffer was stalked and killed. The murderer obtained her address from a private investigation agency doing business in Arizona. The private investigation agency acquired her address through a subcontractor agent in California, who obtained it from DMV. In response, the Legislature enacted AB 1779 (Roos), Chapter 1213, Statutes of 1989, which made home addresses in DMV records confidential, with specified exceptions. AB 1779 left in place, however, earlier confidentiality provisions that applied only to peace officers and certain other officials thought to be at risk. The home addresses of those on the statutory list of such officials may only be disclosed to a court, a law enforcement agency, the BOE, or any governmental agency legally required to be furnished that information. The home addresses of everyone else may also be disclosed, in limited circumstances, to financial institutions, insurance AB 2097 Page 3 companies, attorneys, vehicle manufacturers, and persons doing statistical research. The Orange County Register in 2008 conducted an investigation that uncovered thousands of unpaid violations and tolls accrued by a number of peace officers and other individuals whose DMV records are afforded enhanced confidentiality beyond the protections afforded under AB 1779. Those unpaid tolls and fines had cost agencies in Orange County over $5 million over the prior five years. Parking and toll agencies throughout the state, including those in San Diego and San Francisco, had experienced similar abuses. When parking agencies or toll road operators attempt to collect fines from such individuals, DMV is not able to provide the offender's registered addresses in a manner timely enough for fines to be collected under the statute of limitations. Therefore, it is generally not cost effective for agencies to pursue money owed, so that fines for these violations are usually written off. While some agencies attempt to collect the money by sending a notice to the individuals' employing entities on file at DMV, there is no way to enforce the collection of violations because this practice is not authorized under the law. By requiring a person with enhanced home address confidentiality to provide their business address, this bill would appear to close the above-described loophole that has been exploited by a number of individuals. It would allow toll facilities and parking agencies to avoid large revenue losses and would relieve DMV of the burden of having to respond to the thousands of requests from these agencies for delinquent vehicle owners' mailing addresses, a burden described by DMV as "a major hassle for both us and the agencies." Legislative history : AB 996 (Spitzer) of 2008, which was vetoed by the Governor, would have allowed confidential home addresses maintained by DMV to be disclosed to a governmental agency when that information was necessary to serve or collect a traffic, parking, toll bridge, or toll road violation. Like this bill, it also would have suspended the applicable statutory time periods for processing the service and collection of traffic, parking, toll bridge, or toll road violations until DMV provided the affected law enforcement agency or governmental agency with the home address of a vehicle owner or driver's license holder AB 2097 Page 4 whose address information is otherwise held confidential by DMV. The Governor, in his veto message, said in part: "There are existing mechanisms in place to allow a traffic enforcement agency to pursue collections from law enforcement officers and others who have a restricted confidential home address. The agencies are authorized to obtain an individual's employment information from DMV and send billing notification to the individual's place of employment. Additionally, unpaid fines can be reported to DMV and included in the registration renewal notice. "DMV estimates significant costs to implement this bill, depending on the volume of requests for restricted confidential address records. DMV maintains over 1.5 million records that fall under the Confidential Records program. These records cannot be accessed electronically, and therefore, additional staff time would be required to manually process requests for these records." REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION : Support California State Sheriffs' Association Opposition None received Analysis Prepared by : Howard Posner / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093