In Doe v. Bonta, published May 8, 2024, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's dismissal of an action under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 challenging California Assembly Bill 173, enacted as Penal Code sections 11106(d) and 30352(b). The statutes require the California Department of Justice to provide to a research center at the University of California identifying information about purchasers of firearms and ammunition, as well as of persons who hold concealed carry permits. The statutes also give the DOJ discretion to disseminate the information to other accredited research institutions. The information is primarily obtained from the information firearm purchasers must supply to dealers, who then transmit the information to DOJ; and CCW records that local authorities supply to DOJ. The information is the name, address, identification, place of birth, telephone number, occupation, sex, description, and legal aliases of the purchasers and CCW permittees. The plaintiff gun owners did not object to the maintenance of this information in DOJ databases or to dissemination of the information for law enforcement purposes. But the plaintiffs sought an injunction barring the DOJ from enforcing the legislation, and a declaration that the legislation is unconstitutional, as infringing their 1th Amendment right to informational privacy and 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
The 9th Circuit agreed that the plaintiffs failed to state a claim under the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment right to informational privacy does not protect biographical data. The information provided under the legislation is biographical data. A reasonable expectation of privacy in information provided does not alone trigger 14th Amendment protection. Nor is there a reasonable expectation of confidentiality where, as here, the information is not highly personal. While the CCW permit applications contain Social Security Numbers, the law does not provide that the applications are among the CCW records that local authorities must provide to the DOJ. Nor do the plaintiffs state a 2nd Amendment claim, because the statutes do not affect the right to keep or bear arms. Because the legislation only provides for releasing the information to accredited research institutions, the plaintiffs' concern that their right will be chilled due to increased risk of public exposure and harassment is speculative and lacking in empirical foundation.
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