CHICAGO – Attorney General Kwame Raoul and a coalition of 21 attorneys general announced a U.S. District Court judge granted a temporary restraining order that blocks the Trump administration from demanding the production of a database of state-owned records containing the sensitive personal information of 17 million drivers and from terminating more than $10 million in federal funding to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) if it refuses to produce the database.
“I am pleased the court granted this temporary restraining order that prevents the Trump administration from obtaining the sensitive personal information of millions of drivers – for unknown purposes,” Raoul said. “I will continue to vigorously litigate this lawsuit to stop the Trump administration’s unlawful misuse of Americans’ personal information.”
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Last week, Raoul and the coalition filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), which is an administration of the DOT, and AAMVA, as well as an additional related lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The lawsuits claim the DOT, FMCSA and DHS are violating multiple federal privacy laws by secretly setting up their own database with records extorted from AAMVA, with no guardrails on the use or sharing of drivers’ Social Security numbers and other personal information, and no notice to the public. The lawsuits also allege that the demand violates the Administrative Procedure Act because the federal government has no legitimate need to take over this database of state records, and it failed to consult the states before making this drastic change.
In 1986, Congress established the Commercial Driver’s License Information System (CDLIS) to provide states an efficient means of sharing information about commercial driver’s license (CDL) applicants and determining if an applicant is licensed in another state. Since 1988, the DOT has contracted with AAMVA, a private nonprofit organization, to operate CDLIS for the benefit of the states.
To approve a CDL application, Raoul and the attorneys general explain in the lawsuits, states validate the driver’s identity, medical fitness, immigration status and each applicant’s licensing and driving history in any state where the driver could have been licensed. Once a license is issued, states maintain a record in CDLIS of each driver that includes personally identifiable information such as the driver’s name, date of birth, Social Security number, driver’s license number and the name of state that provided the record.
Raoul and the coalition will now seek a preliminary injunction to prevent the data from being turned over throughout the duration of this case.
Attorney General Raoul led the filing of these lawsuits with Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb. Also joining these lawsuits are attorneys general of?Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin, as well as the state of Pennsylvania. Additionally, the attorney general of Minnesota joined the DHS case.
