Legislative Bulletin, California Newspaper Publishers Association

2/13/04

Task Force proposes sweeping public official privacy measures

A task force organized under the Attorney General's Office has recommended the legislature enact comprehensive laws to protect the privacy of every "public safety employee," a term that is much broader than its description.

The sweeping proposals would variously shield, delete or otherwise protect from public access the name, home address, email, telephone and social security numbers of hundreds of thousands of public officials. The report also suggests other changes that would create new public records exemptions that would affect all Californians.

The task force was created by 2002 legislation (AB 2238 ­ Dickerson). That bill would have enacted many of the changes suggested by the task force, but the legislature rejected those changes and instead created the task force to further study the issue.

A sample of the proposed changes include:

• Amend the Revenue and Taxation Code to block public access by name to any county assessor records on publicly accessible computer terminals and outside sales lists;
• Amend the Revenue and Taxation Code to require preparers of documents to be filed with the county recorder to notify consumers that the document need not contain social security numbers, home address, mother's maiden name, or other personal identifying information of any individual, unless required by law;
• Expand the various definitions of public safety officials and other public officials already specially protected under various laws to further protect all retired employees, code enforcement workers and certain federal employees. Newly created protections would then simply reference these expansive code sections to define who's covered (i.e., all persons defined in Government Code Section 6254.24);
• Amend the Family Code to delete the residence address requirement for all marriage licenses;
• Amend the Elections Code to permit the residence address, phone number and email address of a protected public employee contained in a voter registration record to be made confidential upon appropriate request by the employee;
• Allow a protected public employee to use a business address when applying for a private security license or filing a fictitious business name statement;
• Amend the Elections Code to allow candidates for District Attorney, Sheriff, and elected Public Defender from disclosing address information on their Statement of Candidacy form;
• Amend the Government Code to prohibit the commercial resale of protected employees' home address information on the Internet;
• Make it a crime and an unfair business practice to sell or trade protected employee addresses or phone numbers after receiving written notice that the information be made confidential;
• Amend the Penal code to allow a protected employee to sue any person or business for up to $10,000 for failing to make information confidential after receiving written notice to do so.
• Make it a felony to release home address information of a protected employee with certain criminal intent to harm the employee.

Twenty-two of the 28 members of the task force could fairly be categorized as public safety officers or officials that would be protected by changes recommended by the report. The six remaining task force members either represented protected groups (e.g. judges) or real estate and commercial information businesses. The task force had no public representative.

CNPA governmental affairs staff believes one or more bills will likely be introduced this session to make some or all of these recommended changes.