Justin Sanchez v. Los Angeles Department of Transportation; City of Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California civil rights lawyers represented Plaintiff, who sued Defendant challenging the collection of location data relating to the motorized electric scooters.





Companies such as Bird, Lime, and Lyft began offering

e-scooters for rent to the public in Los Angeles in 2017. The

e-scooters are dockless, meaning they can be left anywhere

after use and picked up by the next rider. They are also

internet-connected, and are rented through the companies'

smartphone applications, which charge riders based on the

distance and duration of the trip taken.



In 2018, Los Angeles enacted a "Shared Mobility Device

Pilot Program” to regulate the fledgling industry. L.A. Ord.

185,785 (Sept. 13, 2018). The program required companies

to obtain a permit from the Los Angeles Department of

Transportation ("LADOT”) to offer e-scooters for rent and

mandated that permittees "comply with all Department

permit rules, regulations, indemnification, insurance and fee

requirements.” Id. As a condition of getting a permit,

LADOT required e-scooter operators to provide vehicle

location data through an application programming interface

("API”)2 called Mobility Data Specification ("MDS”). Used

in conjunction with the operators' smartphone applications,

MDS automatically compiles real-time data on each e-

scooter's location by collecting the start and end points and

times of each ride taken.3 Because LADOT obtains data

directly from the companies in real time, it can manage the

public right-of-way actively and "communicate directly with

product companies in real time using code.”4



Plaintiff Justin Sanchez uses e-scooters to travel from his

home to work, visit friends, frequent local businesses, and

access places of leisure. His complaint asserts that the

collection of MDS location data by LADOT violates the

Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution;

Article I, Section 13 of the California Constitution; and the

California Electronic Communications Privacy Act

("CalECPA”), Cal. Penal Code § 1546 et seq.



The complaint alleges that the MDS protocols provide

the location of e-scooters with Orwellian precision, to within

1.11 centimeters of their exact location. It acknowledges

that "MDS does not collect any information directly

identifying the rider of a particular vehicle.” But, Sanchez

alleges that government actors could subsequently "match

users' trajectories in anonymized data from one dataset, with

deanonymized data in another,” and research indicates

programmers "could identify 50% of people from only two

randomly chosen data points in a dataset that contained only

time and location data.” The City therefore can "easily,” he

alleges, use MDS data in conjunction with other information

to identify trips by individuals to sensitive locations. And,

because the location data may be preserved in accordance

with LADOT data-retention policies, Sanchez alleges that

the City can travel back in time to retrace a rider's

whereabouts.



The district court granted LADOT's motion to dismiss

the complaint without leave to amend. Sanchez v. L.A. Dep't

of Transp., No. CV-20-5044-DMG, 2021 WL 1220690

(C.D. Cal. Feb. 23, 2021). It found that the LADOT program

is not a search under the Fourth Amendment because

Sanchez has no reasonable expectation of privacy over

anonymous MDS location data. Id. at *4. It alternatively

concluded that, even if the collection of MDS data were a

search, it is a reasonable administrative one and thus

constitutional. Id. at *5–6. Because "the right to be free

from unreasonable searches under Art. I § 13 of the

California Constitution parallels the Fourth Amendment

inquiry,” Sanchez v. Cnty. of San Diego, 464 F.3d 916, 928–

29 (9th Cir. 2006), the district court also dismissed

Sanchez's state constitutional claim. Id. at *2. And it

rejected the CalECPA claim, finding that the statute did not

provide Sanchez a private right of action. Id. at *6.

Finding any amendment futile, the district court

dismissed the complaint with prejudice. Id. This timely

appeal followed.

Affirmed.