Attorney general: Police can release DMV information
Police responding to public record requests can legally release personal information they've obtained from motor vehicle records, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said in an opinion released Tuesday.
The opinion is the first attempt to reconcile Wisconsin's open records law with the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), which limits the release of personal information in state motor vehicle records. The federal law was designed to prevent criminals from obtaining information such as addresses and prevent the sale of personal information.
"What the attorney general seems to have said is that the act does not trump the expectation of openness at the core of the public records law," said Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council.
The council along with Capital Newspapers Portage Division, the Wisconsin State Journal, The Capital Times, The Janesville Gazette and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel asked Van Hollen for clarification last July on how the laws overlap. The media organizations complained a number of state municipalities were using the DPPA to justify redacting information in police records.
The Reedsburg Times-Press, part of the Capital Newspapers Portage Division, specifically cited its requests for a car accident report, a complaint about a dog and a traffic ticket. The agency redacted addresses from the documents, citing a federal case that said the DPPA generally prohibits state officials from disclosing personal information from a motor vehicle record.
Van Hollen wrote that the DPPA doesn't prevent motor vehicle departments from sharing information with other government agencies, including police. The act doesn't restrict how those secondary agencies can use the information, he said.
Wisconsin's open records law states the public is entitled to the greatest possible information about government. Van Hollen said restricting police from carrying out their public records functions because of DPPA, including re-disclosing personal motor vehicle information, would subvert public oversight of police investigations and hurt public confidence in law enforcement.
Van Hollen goes on to say the DPPA doesn't prevent police from including a driver's name, address and telephone number in accident reports or tickets. The act does protect driver's photographs, Social Security numbers, medical and disability information, however, the attorney general said.
The right to obtain accident reports is included in a statute that requires drivers to report accidents, police to prepare written reports on the crashes and the Department of Transportation to compile crash statistics, and the DPPA requires personal information to be disclosed in a situation that might affect a car or driver safety and theft, Van Hollen added.
George Althoff, publisher of the Times-Press and the other newspapers in the Capital Newspapers Portage Division, hailed Van Hollen's opinion, saying addresses and other personal information can be crucial to verify identities when reporting stories.
"Sort of a no-brainer, isn't it?" Althoff said. "That's an outstanding opinion by the attorney general."
Reedsburg Police Chief Tim Becker didn't immediately return a message from The Associated Press seeking comment.
