Professional Parking Management Corp. Illegally Accessed Driving Records to Send Parking Citations, Lawsuit Alleges

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Professional Parking Management Corporation (PPM) faces a proposed class action lawsuit that alleges the parking lot and garage operator has unlawfully accessed drivers’ personal information to issue official-looking parking citations that include threats of “severe consequences” should a consumer not pay the exorbitant amount demanded.

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The 22-page lawsuit says that Georgia-based PPM’s citations are made to look like official parking citations, even though they are issued by a privately owned company and not by any arm of government. Further, the suit claims PPM’s citations include illegal threats to tow and boot consumers’ vehicles should the citation go unpaid, though this legal right belongs exclusively to governmental authorities.

Worse yet, the case says, PPM’s citations are addressed using information the company has obtained from official motor vehicle records, in violation of the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), which requires the defendant to receive express written consent from consumers prior to obtaining their driving records.

“PPM did not receive prior express written consent from Plaintiff nor any Class Member prior to invading their privacy,” the proposed class action alleges, claiming PPM seeks written consent from drivers to access their private data only at the time of payment, “well after it has already violated federal law.”

According to the lawsuit, the DPPA was enacted by Congress in 1994 to address growing concerns about the misuse of personal data collected by state departments of motor vehicles. The law was designed to regulate the disclosure and use of data in motor vehicle records to ensure the information is accessible only for “legitimate and specified purposes,” the suit explains.

“Under the DPPA, personal information such as names, addresses, and Social Security numbers cannot be disclosed without the driver’s written consent, except for certain permitted uses, such as law enforcement activities. The act imposes penalties for unauthorized access and misuse of this data, thereby deterring potential abusers and reinforcing the importance of data privacy.”

However, there still exist situations in which “unscrupulous actors like PPM” ignore the DPPA and “abuse the personal information contained in DMV records for illicit purposes,” the filing charges.

“This is one such case,” the complaint summarizes, alleging PPM’s entire business model “is based on flouting the DPPA and abusing official motor vehicle data to harass, intimidate, deceive, distress, and ultimately defraud consumers.”

Per the suit, PPM employs camera-based license plate detection and recognition technology to manage its garages and parking lots nationwide. This technology captures, stores and transmits images of the license plates of drivers entering and exiting the defendant’s facilities, the filing says.

As a vehicle leaves a PPM lot or garage, the company captures an image of the driver’s plate and then uses that image to determine whether the parking fee has been paid, the case shares. When PPM determines that a fee is due, it will mail to the registered owner of the car, who PPM identities by consulting official DMV records, a document titled “PARKING CHARGE NOTICE – DO NOT IGNORE,” the suit relays. 

“PPM uses this illegally obtained information to issue the citation via mail,” the lawsuit claims.

The Professional Parking Management Corporation lawsuit looks to cover all persons in the United States whose personal information, as defined by the DPPA, was obtained by PPM from the individual’s motor vehicle record within the past four years.

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