The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) [18 U.S.C. §§ 2721-2725]
The DPPA was enacted in 1994 and amended in 2000 to protect the privacy of personal information gathered by state departments or bureaus of motor vehicles. The DPPA was passed in reaction to the murder of an actress, Rebecca Schaeffer, who had been stalked by someone who had freely obtained her personal address from a publicly available state database that held drivers’ records. The DPPA allows plaintiffs to recover damages for each time the DPPA is violated. In 2012, a former female police officer in Minnesota filed a lawsuit claiming that 100 fellow officers invaded her privacy when they looked up her driver’s license photo in a database at least 400 times. She received a settlement payment of about $665,000 from several Minnesota cities where police officers had allegedly accessed her record.
Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) [18 U.S.C. § 2710]
The VPPA was passed after a newspaper obtained and published information about the video rental records of the Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. The VPPA was enacted before video-streaming technology existed but has been found to apply to online services. The VPPA was also amended in 2013 to facilitate social media sharing of video viewing preferences when users consent to disclosure of information via the Internet. Other Federal Privacy Laws Bank Secrecy Act, Pub. L. No. 91-508 requires banks to maintain reports of financial transaction as necessary to assist in government investigations. Communications Decency Act, § 230(c) immunizes Internet service providers from liability for content posted by others.
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