Publication of SSN on Court Website Does Not Violate Right of Privacy
In 2003, Cynthia Lambert had the misfortune of getting a speeding citation. To her further misfortune, she later learned that the traffic citation--which included personal identifying information such as her driver's license number and Social Security number--had been published on the County Clerk of Courts' public website. Lambert learned this fact after she was contacted by two stores who reported suspicious purchases made in her name by a person who used a driver's license that displayed her name, home address, birth date, driver's license number and Social Security number. The stores suggested that the identity thief may have obtained Lambert's personal information from the County Clerk's website. Indeed, when Lambert examined the citation on the website, she discovered that it, like the fake ID used by the identity thief, contained a driver's license number that was wrong by one digit. Lambert--not unreasonably--asked that the information be removed from the website but the County Clerk's office refused, stating that removing the records "would require vast amounts of manpower."
So, Lambert filed suit, claiming, in part, that the publication of the citation violated her constitutional right to privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment. Notably, by the time she filed suit, the police had apprehended a group of individuals who had used the personal information from the County Clerk's website to commit identity theft, including a woman who admitted that she had stolen Lambert's identity from the website.
Unfortunately for Lambert though, the District Court concluded that she had failed to state a claim because her claimed privacy interest was not "of a constitutional dimension." While obviously sympathetic to Lambert's situation, the Sixth Circuit agreed with the District Court, concluding that she had not shown an infringement of a right that is "fundamental or implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," as required by Sixth Circuit precedent.
But the news wasn't all bad. According to the Sixth Circuit (which characterized the decision to provide unfettered internet access to Social Security numbers "unwise"), the County Clerk "removed the citations in question" from the website and changed the local rules to protect sensitive personal information.
You can read the full opinion here.
