BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 2192
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 23, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION
Bonnie Lowenthal, Chair
AB 2192 (Miller) - As Amended: March 29, 2012
SUBJECT : Home address confidentiality
SUMMARY : Requires persons whose home addresses are afforded a
higher degree of confidentiality by the Department of Motor
Vehicles (DMV) to provide DMV with a current employment address
for purposes of collecting traffic, parking, or toll evasion
fines. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires a person who requests the confidentiality of his or
her home address contained within DMV records 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 under the Vehicle Code.
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 owner or lessee has been served with a traffic, parking
or toll violation and has been mailed a notice of delinquent
parking violation or a failure to pay a traffic citation; 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 owner or
lessee has not paid the penalty and administrative fee.
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6)Requires DMV to update the home address confidentiality
request form to require the requestor to provide a current
employment address and to distribute and make available copies
of the updated form to the human resources office of each
agency that employs any of the classes of persons eligible for
this level of confidentiality.
7)Requires the human resources office of a new employee
requesting confidentiality or an employee who has an existing
confidentiality application on file with DMV to make the
updated form available to new and current employees and
require, on and after January 1, 2013, that all new employees
requesting confidentiality or employees who have an existing
confidentiality application on file with DMV complete and
return the form with their current employment address to their
human resources office.
8)Requires those offices to forward all new application forms to
DMV's Confidential Records Unit (CRU) upon receipt from the
employee and forward the completed updated forms of existing
employees who have an application on file with DMV to the CRU
by April 1, 2014.
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.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown. However, a Senate Committee analysis
of similar legislation in 2010 projected significant costs for
DMV as well as increased collection of traffic, toll, and
parking fines by local agencies.
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COMMENTS : The author has introduced this bill to ensure that
"even bureaucrats pay their traffic tickets. Over one-million
government workers' mailing addresses are not displayed in the
DMV public-access records. Because their addresses are hidden,
they often do not receive traffic citations that are sent via
mail. Without raising taxes or fees, AB 2192 generates
additional revenue for transportation projects, by closing the
loophole in the law that hides mailing addresses from toll road,
traffic ticket, and parking citation enforcement."
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 (a list that has increased
substantially in the intervening years) 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
that uncovered thousands of unpaid parking 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
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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.
Since the enactment of AB 1779, there is not one documented case
of any licensed driver or registered vehicle owner being tracked
down for nefarious purposes through their DMV records.
Therefore one might question whether there is any need for the
confidentiality program that applies to peace officers and
others on the statutory list. If the political will does not
exist for the repeal of that program, at the very least it
should not be used to enable individuals to avoid the payment of
traffic tickets. In that light, this bill represents a long
overdue reform that will both enable the prosecution of these
violations and boost the revenue streams of the affected public
agencies.
The author concludes by saying, "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 : The author also carried AB 2097 in 2010
and, AB 3 in 2011 which were similar to this bill. AB 2097
passed all legislative votes unanimously until dying on Suspense
in the Senate Appropriations Committee. AB 3 passed this
committee unanimously but died in Assembly Appropriations on
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Suspense. AB 996 (Spitzer) of 2008, which was vetoed by
Governor Schwarzenegger, 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.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
None on file
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Howard Posner / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093