A divided Third Circuit holds that a union which tracked down employees during an organizing campaign by taking down car license numbers in the employee parking lot and using the numbers to search for vehicle ownership and home addresses (“tagging”) violated the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994.

The federal law contains a general prohibition on the release and use of motor vehicle information, but enumerates fourteen specific exceptions to the general prohibition. The union claimed that its tagging activities were permissible under the “litigation exception” and the “acting on behalf of the government” exception. “The Act contains no language that would excuse an impermissible use merely because it was executed in conjunction with a permissible purpose,” the Third Circuit says. “Because [the union] obtained and used the confidential information for an impermissible purpose—union organizing—it does not matter what other permissible purpose [the union] may have had.” Pichler v. UNITE HERE