HB5528 creates a new section in West Virginia’s Public Records Management and Preservation Act to protect the personal residential information of certain public officials and related household members. The bill applies to a broad group of “covered individuals,” including judicial officers, prosecutors, public defenders, law-enforcement officers, elected officials, and campaign treasurers, as well as immediate family members living in the same household. It defines protected information to include home street addresses, personal telephone numbers, and names when tied to a home address.
Under the bill, a covered individual may submit a written request to the agency controlling a publicly accessible website, database, or record and identify a specific record containing the protected information. The agency must remove or redact the information from the identified record and make reasonable efforts to remove it from other records within the agency. If the agency fails to comply, the individual may seek injunctive or declaratory relief in court, and a prevailing party may recover reasonable attorneys’ fees and litigation costs. The bill also lists several exceptions, including disclosures for internal government use, law enforcement, consumer reporting, title and real property records, election administration, subpoenas, and certain disclosures to political opponents for candidate eligibility challenges.
The bill’s impact is to add a privacy-protection mechanism to state records law by limiting public access to residential contact information for specified officials and their household members. It places affirmative duties on state agencies, counties, municipalities, and other political subdivisions that maintain publicly accessible records, and it creates a potential civil remedy for noncompliance. It also requires the requesting individual to acknowledge that redaction may prevent receipt of some legal, promotional, or official notices.
Overall, the bill appears to have been broadly supported. It passed the House 86-2, passed the Senate unanimously 32-0 after an amended title, and then the House concurred in the Senate amendment by a 90-2 vote. The voting pattern suggests little controversy over the core privacy protections, though the narrow dissent in the House indicates some limited opposition or concern.
The main point of contention likely concerns the balance between privacy and transparency, especially because the bill covers a wide range of officials and allows redaction from publicly accessible records. The exceptions section also shows an effort to preserve access for government operations, law enforcement, election enforcement, real property transactions, and legal process, which likely helped address concerns about unintended interference with official notice, public records, and administrative functions.
HB5528 amends West Virginia Code by adding §5A-8-24a to the Public Records Management and Preservation Act. It requires agencies and other controlling entities to redact or remove personal residential information from specified public records upon written request from covered individuals, and it authorizes injunctive or declaratory relief plus attorneys’ fees if the agency fails to comply. The bill affects state agencies, counties, municipalities, and political subdivisions that maintain publicly accessible websites, databases, or records, while preserving several statutory and practical exceptions for law enforcement, election administration, real property, and other legal disclosures.
The bill was received positively overall and moved through both chambers with overwhelming support. The House first passed it 86-2, the Senate passed it 32-0 with an amended title, and the House then concurred 90-2. That voting history suggests broad bipartisan agreement that certain public officials and their families should have stronger privacy protections for home contact information.
The likely tension in HB5528 is between personal safety/privacy for public officials and the public’s access to government records. Supporters would favor shielding home addresses and personal phone numbers for judges, prosecutors, law-enforcement officers, elected officials, and campaign treasurers, while critics may worry about reduced transparency or administrative burdens on recordkeeping agencies. The bill’s exceptions indicate an attempt to limit those concerns by preserving disclosures needed for internal government use, law enforcement, election enforcement, title and property transactions, and legal process.