BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2097
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 2097 (Miller)
As Amended May 28, 2010
Majority vote
TRANSPORTATION 13-0 APPROPRIATIONS 17-0
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|Ayes:|Bonnie Lowenthal, |Ayes:|Fuentes, Conway, Ammiano, |
| |Jeffries, | |Bradford, Charles |
| |Bill Berryhill, | |Calderon, Coto, Davis, |
| |Blumenfield, Buchanan, | |Monning, Ruskin, Harkey, |
| |Eng, Furutani, Galgiani, | |Miller, Nielsen, Norby, |
| |Hayashi, Miller, Niello, | |Skinner, Solorio, |
| |Portantino, Solorio | |Torlakson, Torrico |
| | | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Requires persons requesting confidentiality of their
Department of Motor Vehicles (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
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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.
6)Requires DMV to update its form that is used for requesting
home address confidentiality so as to require the applicant or
enrollee to provide a current employment address.
7)Requires DMV to distribute and make available these forms to
the human resources offices of agencies that employ persons
eligible for home address confidentiality.
8)Requires those human resources offices to make the updated
forms available to new applicants and current enrollees and
require them to complete and return the forms to those
offices.
9)Requires those offices to forward the completed forms to DMV's
Confidential Records Unit by April 12, 2012.
EXISTING LAW :
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.
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FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee:
1)DMV would incur minor annual costs to update its files.
However, there would be potentially significant savings to DMV
in future years resulting from fewer calls going to its law
enforcement desk requesting address information.
2)Potential revenue, in the range of several hundreds of
thousands of dollars annually, accruing to local agencies to
the extent the measure results in improved collections of
penalties from parking and toll violations.
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
companies, attorneys, vehicle manufacturers, and persons doing
statistical research.
The Orange County Register in 2008 conducted an investigation
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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
whose address information is otherwise held confidential by DMV.
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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."
Analysis Prepared by : Howard Posner / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093
FN: 0004691