Spencer loves movies. He used to go to the Regal City North cinema in Chicago three times a week. But he never goes there anymore—because of the parking lot.
Then, in March 2023, Spencer parked his car in the lot for a movie, and left through the ungated exit, as usual. A few days later, a letter came in the mail, addressed to his wife. It contained a picture of the car and license plate number, and claimed that his wife owed $100 to ABM Industries, an outsourcing company thatin revenue each year managing parking lots and other facilities like schools, hospitals, and airports all over the country.
However, Scott Burnham, Illinois’ deputy secretary of state, told me that the ABM parking lot is “clearly violating the DPPA under the federal law,” as “states may only share personal information for limited purposes detailed in the DPPA, and a private entity using that personal data to collect on parking violations is definitely not one of them. ”Last fall, Burnham’s office and the Illinois attorney general’s office worked together to launch an investigation into ABM and its affiliates.