Tennessee Senate Bill SB0209

Tennessee 2025-2026 Regular Session

• Introduced: 1/16/25

Caption

AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 10, Chapter 7, relative to confidential records.

Summary

SB0209 amends Tennessee’s public records law to make certain personal information of specified public employees confidential when the employee submits a written request. The bill applies to active or former sworn state and local law enforcement officers, correctional officers, correction probation officers, certain Department of Children’s Services investigators, revenue-collection personnel, judges and court staff, district attorneys general, and public defenders. For those covered individuals, home addresses, telephone numbers, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and official or work-related photographs would not be public records after a request is filed with the relevant agency. The bill also allows local governments to designate a person or office to receive and distribute these confidentiality requests across departments. Even when protected, the information may still be released under a court order, subpoena, or to law enforcement during an active investigation. The bill further requires agencies to redact protected information from otherwise public records when possible and states that the presence of confidential information cannot be used to deny access to an otherwise public record.

Impact

This bill narrows access under Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 10, Chapter 7 by creating a new confidentiality protection for specified categories of public employees and former employees. It affects state and local agencies that maintain personnel or related records, requiring them to honor written confidentiality requests and to redact protected data from records released to the public. The measure primarily impacts public records administration, employee privacy, and agency compliance procedures rather than creating new substantive duties for the covered employees themselves.

Sentiment

Based on the bill text and the absence of recorded committee debate or votes in the provided materials, the bill appears to be a privacy-protection measure with an expectedly favorable or noncontroversial posture. Its structure suggests support for shielding sensitive personal information of law enforcement, judicial, correctional, child welfare, revenue, and prosecutorial personnel from public disclosure. No opposing arguments or recorded dissent are available in the provided context.

Contention

The main policy tension in SB0209 is between personal safety/privacy for covered public employees and the public’s access to government records. Supporters would likely emphasize the need to protect home addresses, birth dates, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, and photographs of officials who may face heightened security risks because of their work. Potential concerns could come from open-records advocates or media interests worried that the bill expands confidentiality and could complicate access to records, though the bill attempts to limit that concern by requiring redaction rather than wholesale denial of otherwise public records.