Hollywood resident Peter Cicale says he was heading to the beach in January 2024 when he parked in an open parking space in a nearby lot.
He didn’t expect to open the mailbox at his home four days later to find a “parking charge notice” from a company called Professional Parking Management Corp. stating that he owed $90 for failing to pay. The document included photos of his license tag and an offer to reduce the charge to $55, plus tax, if he paid within 15 days.
And while the invoice looked like a parking ticket, it did not say that failure to pay would jeopardize Cicale’s license or registration status or ding his credit score.
“There was no signage or attendant,” Cicale recently told the South Florida Sun Sentinel about his decision to use the parking lot at 915 N. Ocean Drive. “When I came back, I just drove off. I didn’t know I was being surveilled.”
Cicale, who paid the $90 bill, is the lead plaintiff in a civil lawsuit filed against Professional Parking Management Corp., a Georgia-registered company headquartered in Fort Lauderdale that manages privately owned parking lots in several states.
The lawsuit, which seeks class action status, is among dozens filed in South Florida courts that have listed PPM or other parking companies as defendants.
The latest suits claim the companies violated the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act by obtaining vehicle owners’ names and addresses from a database operated by the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles based on photos of license tag numbers captured at the parking lots by automated cameras.
Operators have fought hard in recent years to preserve their ability to send invoices to drivers’ homes.
Three years ago, PPM teamed with another company, City Parking, to lobby state lawmakers to enact a law barring local governments from prohibiting parking companies from issuing their own citations.
The effort was a response to ordinances passed by the city of Miami and Broward County because officials feared drivers would believe the citations could result in court hearings, license suspensions, booting, towing or impoundment.
Professional Parking Management Corp., which manages a privately owned parking lot that’s the focus of a lawsuit, says drivers agree to receive fines under terms of contracts like these posted at their lots. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Cicale’s lawsuit claims that the company’s “business model ostensibly involves charging drivers to park their vehicles in its facilities.”
It adds, “In reality, however, PPM’s business is about mailing parking citations to vehicle owners and threatening them with severe consequences if they do not pay exorbitant sums demanded in PPM’s citations.”
Cicale’s suit says PPM’s invoices deceptively threaten to boot or tow vehicles of drivers who do not pay. “Such a legal right belongs exclusively to the government or third parties acting on behalf of the government,” the suit contends.
PPM defended its invoicing practice in a statement to the South Florida Sun Sentinel by invoking the law it lobbied lawmakers to create.
“PPM complies with Florida law — which allows private parking lots to set rules for charging parking fees and parkers to be charged published violation fees,” the company said.
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In an Oct. 3 pending motion to dismiss a revised complaint by Cicale, PPM called his invasion-of-privacy allegations “flawed” and argued that he ignored multiple signs and pay stations at the parking lot directing him to pay for parking. Further signs spelled out a parking contract warning that failure to pay would subject him to a “parking charge plus taxes and surcharges.”
By using the lot, Cicale granted PPM and its agents “permission to obtain registered owner information for the vehicle you park in this parking facility, including the registered owner’s address” for the purpose of issuing a parking charge notice, PPM’s filing states.
In a 2021 article by the Miami New Times, lot owners said the invoicing model benefits consumers because fines are preferable to booting or towing.
PPM also contends that all of the parking lots they manage are marked with signage that spell out rates and fines.
“Frictionless parking is an honor system,” the statement said. “It relies on parkers to pay based on clearly posted rules, and to follow the clear signage about paying in advance. We rely on people paying for their parking as they park.”
Shown is a copy of a parking violation notice that Professional Parking Management Corp. allegedly sent to Peter Cicale in 2024, presented as an exhibit in Cicale’s amended complaint against the company filed in September 2025. (U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, Fort Lauderdale Division)
Court battles unfold
The lawsuits are among numerous legal fights underway across multiple states against operators of private parking lots.
They come as operators transition payment methods from meters, attendants, gates or tickets to cellphone apps.
Unlike when time purchased at a parking meter expires, drivers can’t consider themselves in the clear if they find no ticket or tow truck when they return to their vehicles.
Similar lawsuits are pending in Tennessee, Texas, Alabama, Colorado and California that claim parking management companies misuse their states’ motor vehicle registration databases.
Two federal judges in Florida recently declined to dismiss cases in response to filings by parking management companies claiming that the plaintiffs had no standing to sue. Those filings further contended that use of the databases was legitimate.
Both judges clarified that they weren’t ruling on the legality of the uses, but setting aside the question to be addressed at a later time. One of the rulings also dismissed the claims alleged by a co-plaintiff of Cicale. He followed it by filing a second amended complaint as the sole lead plaintiff, a matter that’s still pending.
The other case, filed by a woman ticketed by Hollywood-based Vanguard Parking Solutions after using a parking garage in Miami, was soon settled.
Four other lawsuits filed in federal court against Professional Parking Management Corp. were also settled in recent years. Terms are confidential.
Challenges to uses of the motor vehicle databases remain unresolved. No judge so far has issued definitive rulings on the merits of the cases — whether drivers’ private data is illegally breached when obtained by parking management companies.
In the suit against Vanguard, the court found that the plaintiff had sufficiently “disclaimed” Vanguard’s arguments that two of 14 exemptions to the DPPA in the federal code justified the company’s use of the motor vehicle database. But the court also said that a substantive analysis of the plaintiff’s claims was “inappropriate” at such an early stage of the case.
Janet Varnell, an attorney with Tampa-based Varnell & Warwick, P.A., who represents Cicale, along with Golden Beach-based attorney Bret Lusskin, says their case was the first to allege violations of the driver’s protection act.
She says defendants often settle claims early to avoid precedent-setting rulings.
“Our case is different,” Varnell says. “We’re seeking relief that protects everyone affected, not just one person, and we want a ruling that makes clear you cannot run a plate, pull DMV data, and use someone’s home address to send deceptive payment demands without a lawful basis.”
Numerous private parking lots
Sixteen lawsuits filed since August against PPM by plaintiffs represented by Fort Lauderdale-based Patti Zabaleta Law Group in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade circuit courts with claims similar to Cicale’s, are currently the subject of a dispute over whether they should be consolidated and moved to federal court.
Those suits further argue that PPM had no way of proving who drove into and out of the parking lots before sending citations to registered owners of vehicles.
Together, the 16 lawsuits and Cicale’s complaint identify numerous PPM-managed parking lots, including in Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Wilton Manors, Delray Beach and others in Miami-Dade County.
The Broward County Property Appraiser’s website identifies a much longer list of potential revenue-generating parcels. The records don’t indicate which are managed by PPM, its competitors, or owners of adjacent venues like hospitals, art centers and government buildings. Yet, 593 commercially zoned parking lots owned by 445 business entities are listed in Fort Lauderdale alone, while Hollywood has 243 lots and 234 owners.
Enacting ‘privacy protection’
Congress enacted the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act in 1994 in response to a series of violent crimes by offenders who gained access to their state’s motor vehicle records. Victims included actress Rebecca Schaeffer, who was killed in her West Hollywood home by an obsessed fan who paid a private detective to find her address in California’s DMV records in 1989.
The DPPA prohibits “obtaining, disclosing, or using personal information from a motor vehicle record except for the statute’s enumerated permissible uses, one of which (requires) the driver’s express consent,” Cicale argues in the lawsuit.
PPM, like other parking management companies, has argued in court records that its access to DMV databases is allowed under two permissible uses spelled out in the law.
One of the uses allows access “in anticipation of litigation” while the other allows it for reasons “specifically authorized under the law of the State that holds the record, if such use is related to the operation of a motor vehicle or public safety.”
In its statement to the Sun Sentinel, PPM contended that its “legally permitted” violation fees are “comparable to what Florida municipalities charge for parking violations” and, like cities’ fines, increase if they go unpaid. However, “our percentage increase over the original parking fee is typically lower,” the company said.
Signs posted at the Hollywood parking lot at 915 N. Ocean Drive warn motorists that they must pay before leaving the lot. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Hundreds of complaints
Florida’s Attorney General’s Office has logged 556 complaints against Professional Parking Management Corp. since 2020, a spokesman for the office said. They peaked at 172 in 2023. So far in 2025, the company has generated 119 complaints.
Over the past three years, PPM has been the subject of 1,542 complaints to the Better Business Bureau, according to its website. The consumer protection nonprofit gives the company an F rating for failing to respond to 779 complaints. In addition, 122 complaints have been filed against the company that were not resolved, while 397 have been closed in the last 12 months, the site states.
In complaints and one-star reviews on the site, consumers said that they received violation notices despite paying for time at lots managed by the company. Some said that they received notices in error and that they never parked where they were accused of parking. Some complained that their overstays did not justify the fine they are being told to pay. Others said the app they used didn’t work. And a couple said they received invoices despite using valet services at restaurants.
Asked about the complaints, PPM said that their pace and volume “has gone down dramatically” over the past four years following “significant investments in and improvements to our customer service and dispute resolution process.”
A long-running dispute
Disputes involving citations from private parking lot management companies have been simmering for years.
Responding to consumer complaints about violation notices, the city of Miami in 2019 and Broward County in 2022 banned operators of private parking facilities from issuing citations for violating facilities’ rules.
Lobbyists for the private parking industry failed to convince the local governments to rescind the bans. Then they turned to the state Legislature.
A bill prohibiting local governments from barring citations by private parking lot owners was enacted in 2022. Three weeks before Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law, PPM and City Parking each contributed $25,000 to a political action committee helping to fund DeSantis’ reelection campaign that year, Florida Division of Elections records show.
PPM responded to questions about donations to DeSantis and other conservative groups by the company with the statement, “Like any industry, the parking industry seeks to educate the public and our elected representatives on issues of importance to the industry, our partners and our customers.”
After the legislation was enacted years ago, complaints — and lawsuits — continued.
In 2024, two Miami-Dade County House members, state Reps. Vicki Lopez and Demi Busatta, co-sponsored a bill aimed at restoring some power to consumers by requiring parking companies to provide a dispute resolution system.
It established a 15-minute grace period preventing operators from charging drivers who enter a parking facility but do not park.
And it required parking operators to provide opportunities for drivers to dispute their citations, including requiring appeals to be decided by a “third-party arbitrator.”
But the law left it up to parking management companies to oversee the dispute process, including establishing criteria for selecting the arbitrators. Rep. Lopez confirmed to the Sun Sentinel that records of how disputes are resolved aren’t available for examination by the public.
Professional Parking Management Corp. declined to provide its dispute resolution data. The company said that it provides “multiple, easy-to-access methods for people to dispute claims directly with PPM and with Effective Arbitration for impartial, third-party adjudication.”
Varnell said her firm is determined to push for a ruling that settles whether private parking citations justify access to the state’s motor vehicle records.
“This isn’t abstract privacy theory,” she says. “The statute allows many legitimate uses — law enforcement, recalls, true safety needs — but revenue tactics that rely on unauthorized DMV lookups are not among them.”
Regardless of whether courts ultimately strike down or uphold parking management companies’ use of the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act to locate alleged scofflaws, South Florida drivers can take steps to ensure they won’t receive parking violation notices and demands for money.
Parking will always be an issue in the area, and drivers shouldn’t assume any empty spaces are free to use unless their availability is confirmed by owners of the lots or adjacent businesses.
Drivers who’ve recently received invoices should keep in mind that they cannot be taken to traffic court, have their driver’s licenses or registrations suspended, or get pulled over because of an unpaid fine. No one associated with a private parking lot can come to drivers’ homes and boot or tow their vehicles.
And although the invoice threatens to turn unpaid fines over to “collections,” credit scores of drivers who fail to pay won’t be affected.
“Our parking notices are not reported to the credit bureaus,” says a spokesman for Professional Parking Management Corp.
Cicale says he now approaches parking spaces with the question, “Is it safe to park here?”
“Mainly, I know I’m being surveilled in all these lots now and that makes me feel uncomfortable, especially when I’m in a car with my family. I think it’s an invasion of privacy.”
Ron Hurtibise covers business and consumer issues for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. He can be reached by phone at 954-356-4071 or by email at rhurtibise@sunsentinel.com.
