Should public employees' addresses be public? The Commonwealth Court is due to decide that in a case involving public school employees' home addresses. It issued a preliminary injunction stopping the release of addresses, saying that people's right to privacy is protected by the state constitution.
The state's open records office has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the injunction, according to this editorial in The Legal Intelligencer. It patiently explains why the Commonwealth Court would be wrong to extend constitutional protection of privacy to public employees' addresses, and should instead apply the Right-to-Know law's personal security exemption, which says information can be withheld if it "would be reasonably likely to result in a substantial and demonstrable risk of physical harm to or the personal security of an individual."
The editorial says, among other points, that if addresses are constitutionally protected, "school districts would face constitutional claims for distributing school directories to their students. A person might be able to state a prima facie tort case for publication of private facts if his neighbor tells someone where he lives. Deeds might not be publicly recorded, and property tax assessment records might no longer be publicly available."
You might recall that York County is citing privacy concerns in denying the York Daily Record/Sunday News' request for 911 response logs, saying that release of such information could endanger crime victims. The county will release only a set of times, which it admits makes it impossible to evaluate first-responder performance.
That position is counter to what the legislature intended in the new RTK law, which made the 911 logs public and assumed (but did not specify in the law itself) that either addresses or some type of geographical identifier would be part of the logs.
The privacy issue, according to the newspaper's managing editor, Randy Parker, would not play out as envisioned by the county. "Nothing in our analysis would expose a victim of a sexual crime," he said. But an evaluation of response times, he said, "may be able to help identify response times to domestic violence. I think a lot of people would like to know if police respond to domestic violence calls as quickly as they respond to accidents or other crimes."
The open records office agreed with the newspaper, but the county wants the Common Pleas court to decide. Stay tuned.
The state's open records office has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the injunction, according to this editorial in The Legal Intelligencer. It patiently explains why the Commonwealth Court would be wrong to extend constitutional protection of privacy to public employees' addresses, and should instead apply the Right-to-Know law's personal security exemption, which says information can be withheld if it "would be reasonably likely to result in a substantial and demonstrable risk of physical harm to or the personal security of an individual."
The editorial says, among other points, that if addresses are constitutionally protected, "school districts would face constitutional claims for distributing school directories to their students. A person might be able to state a prima facie tort case for publication of private facts if his neighbor tells someone where he lives. Deeds might not be publicly recorded, and property tax assessment records might no longer be publicly available."
You might recall that York County is citing privacy concerns in denying the York Daily Record/Sunday News' request for 911 response logs, saying that release of such information could endanger crime victims. The county will release only a set of times, which it admits makes it impossible to evaluate first-responder performance.
That position is counter to what the legislature intended in the new RTK law, which made the 911 logs public and assumed (but did not specify in the law itself) that either addresses or some type of geographical identifier would be part of the logs.
The privacy issue, according to the newspaper's managing editor, Randy Parker, would not play out as envisioned by the county. "Nothing in our analysis would expose a victim of a sexual crime," he said. But an evaluation of response times, he said, "may be able to help identify response times to domestic violence. I think a lot of people would like to know if police respond to domestic violence calls as quickly as they respond to accidents or other crimes."
The open records office agreed with the newspaper, but the county wants the Common Pleas court to decide. Stay tuned.
Leave a comment