H.B. 325 Government Records Classification Amendments: transcript

Thank you Mr. Chair and committee members. I appreciate you having me on your agenda today. Let's see if I've got this going. Okay. Here, are you able to hear me Okay? Okay. Thank you. So, hospital 3 25. It updates grandma and enhances the balance between the people's right to know and privacy and their right to their privacy. This can we, next slide please. Can you hit the next slide? Thank you. Thank you. So this also clarifies, uh, which records are public and information that can be kept private. So records of a government entities, uh, receipt or expenditure of public funds, uh, the budgets, vouchers, general ledgers, grants, vendor competition. Next slide please. And worked in collaboration with the Utah Office of Data Privacy, the division of Archives and Records. And I guess you guys can read these things. Media coalition law Enforcement, and they both, um, they all support this measure. Thank you. Uh, one of the big parts of this bill is that victim's names are not automatically made public on the initial police contact report. And we're, we did that in an effort to keep their privacy and if need be the, we have a new person that does it now here at this state. The person over grandma will be able to say that, that, that the public need is, is more than the private need on that one and be able to do that. Thank you. And this is was my most important part here that I appreciate on the bill, that we worked hard on this one. It limits the portions of property tax records and it classifies as private. There's certain exemptions and abatements, and it's whether they reveal, as, as you can see there, blind indigent, the active military and disabled veterans and senior citizens. And the efforts here is because we wanted to make sure that these people aren't targeted. And I have the director of Utah's data privacy office and he'll explain some of the intricacies with that one and in the reasons why we went that direction. And we wanna make sure the, the blind, uh, that they're not targeted and that if we have active military, that their, their families aren't targeted as well. And disabled veterans, uh, we've had some issues where people are able to see, can change. Next slide please. Thank you that people are able to see, at least in my county, and I understand in other counties as well. If you look at the yellow portion here on this slide, it shows that there's a veteran's abatement, which means they're disabled and a portion of disabled. We don't want them to be targets for bad actors. And on the bottom, this is actually a friend of mine, she's 83 years old and it shows that she's older and she's getting the circuit breaker. And that generally means they're over 66. And this one, she's 83. And the other one is, uh, is another personal family friend of mine. Um, he's actually passed away now, but, uh, you could see there that he would have a hundred percent, it's a hundred percent disability for him. And I've asked if, uh, Chris Bramwell could come up and join me on the presentation. So if you have any questions, Christopher Bramwell, uh, director Utah Office of Data Privacy.

Um, a couple other points to, to add to the bill. A lot of what our office does is, uh, balancing privacy and transparency. Um, obviously you need transparency to hold government accountable to know what's happening. Uh, but there can be conflict with privacy when certain personal data may be made public and, and that could, uh, cause harms or, uh, present risks to individuals. So this bill, uh, part of it was part of research that came out of our office with the university, uh, or, uh, Utah Valley University in relation to DAC tax abatement records for veterans. We actually collected data on 27 out of the 29 counties and actually found that almost every county manages the same data differently. In some counties, it would actually be all public and you would know exactly who is an active duty veteran serving overseas, which now actually can be used to easily target them for crimes. It's very easy to say, oh, we can scrape that data from public websites and now go and say, Hey, Rob the home. They're likely not there. Or it would identify, are you on a hundred percent a hundred percent disabled veteran, which then allows you to be targeted for crimes. Or if you know somebody's blind, it can make you the target for scammers or for crimes or for thieves. Um, so what we had recommended as part of our research was this balancing of how do you make the correct data public while, uh, ensuring sensitive data that could pose a risk to an individual is made private. So, uh, as part of that effort, we brought together the, the media coalition law enforcement to work through not just that part of the bill, but also on the victim's, uh, names and initial contacts reports. That part came about because of some complaints our office received where it right now in grandma and the definition of an initial contact report, victim name is included in that. So then by default, there's a presumption that victim names would be made public. So all this bill does is delete victim name from being. In that definition, there's still a presumption of public, but now when law enforcement entities or grammar specialists in these entities look at the law, it doesn't explicitly say victim's name has to be included in that as a public record. And then it's the determination of the records officer of whether to release it or not. And the media coalition felt comfortable with this approach 'cause there's still a presumption that it would be public. They can use existing grandma appeals processes to get access to victim's name if they think the public, uh, benefit outweighs the individual right to privacy. And then the third aspect of the bill addressing financial records and making clear which records are public versus which ones should be private. This actually came, uh, about because some, some issues this year with governmental entities and political subdivisions specifically, uh, that did not want to release, uh, general ledgers because they contained personal data in that use. They actually would classify the entire record as private and charge a, a large amount of fees to redact it when, uh, when it should just be maintained in a form that it could be easily redacted and made available. So our office, while we're we do privacy, privacy does not again mean everything's public. So this was just our attempt to help support that clarification that there are records that should absolutely be, uh, clearly a public record and transparent and there is a already a greater public interest to make them public. And that privacy interest does not override that.

Okay, thank you. Anything else? No, I complete our presentation.

Yeah, this question. So any, whenever I see a bill like this, I'd like to ask the question. So what's, what's the problem you're solving and can you give examples of that problem?

Sure. Um, we have actually received multiple claim, uh, complaints on all three of these items. So there have been initial contact reports where victims' names have been made public and, uh, and it would be, uh, safe to assume that in some of those scenarios they should have been private. Uh, this can include, uh, victims who are children. This could be adults, a sensitive populations. But right now, um, there's not a, an equal application of the law because every entity has a different maturity level and understanding of records management. So that is a very real issue where these names are made public. And now with AI and how, uh, AI models are built, once this data's made public, it's gonna be available there forever. So this is trying to get ahead of that, to try to protect these individuals and not make data public that we now would view as sensitive and should maybe have some more privacy governing that. Uh, the financial record adjustment, that's because they have a specific complaint that came up, not just with our office, but also to the state auditor's office related to, uh, records that were being, uh, classified as private, but should have been public. So this is just clarifying that there is not an overriding privacy interest. So that is a real issue that's come up. Um, and then the other aspect of the bill is the tax abatement counties right now do not have uniform guidance on, uh, to say this is how you should apply in gram at section 3 0 2, where you can make certain personal data, uh, private to protect their privacy interests of the individual. Uh, that's a, a very detailed process to make that determination. So by making this adjustment and for tax abatements to allow those to be private, it prov provides uniform clarity so all counties can update their systems and appropriately to make this information private in a uniform way. And that data is currently in counties as shown here. Some of it is made public and there are instances if you go and just search on Google around the nation of these sensitive populations being targeted for crimes. 'cause it's very easy to gather that data and you can automate it and say, Hey, here's people who are blind, blind, let's target them. Or here's people who have a XY, Z disability. And it's easy to do phone scams or, or property records to say it's a indignant individual and they have this disability. You may be able to, to file a, a false tax deed to try to, you know, take ownership of their property. These are things that are becoming more prevalent now because of technology.

Thanks. Okay.

Thanks Chair. I would make a motion that we favor, we recommend, uh, third substitute house bill 3 25.

Uh, so house Bill 3 25. This bill is a narrow, thoughtful updates. It makes narrow thoughtful updates to our public records laws to Better, can you pull that? Can you pull that mic up closer? Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Let me start that again. This bill makes narrow thoughtful updates to our public records laws to better balance transparency with individual privacy. And anybody that knows me knows that I've been working on balancing transparency and privacy in many areas of our law, while preserving Utah's strong presumption in favor of transparent government. First, this bill maintains a presumption that the initial contact reports are public records. This give, this gives entities clearer discretion to redact victim names from those reports. This is especially important in cases involving children of significant trauma or individuals with significant trauma where public discourse of a victim's identity can cause lasting harm, yet while the public still remains access, retains the access about incidents and government response. Second, this book clarifies core financial records such as general ledgers, financial reports and records showing the receipt and expenditure of public funds. They are to remain public records. In recent cases, some entities classify these records as non-public simply because they contained incidental personal information. This bill removes that confusion and reaffirms transparency around taxpayer dollars. Finally, and probably the ones most important to me, and, uh, Calvin, could you please show that for us? What I have up there? Thank you. This bill protects sensitive personal information tied to property tax abatements exemptions, defer, deferrals and relief, for example, if you can see those yet, I'm sure they're not of yet. We're pulling That up. Okay. Yeah, give Us just a second. I'll keep going on and you'll be able to see it in just a second. For example, records showing that a homeowner receives an active military service tax abatement may be an indicator that the individual is overseas or outta state. This information that scammers or thieves can use to target homes that may be empty or even with other family members there. Similarly, some abatements can directly reveal that an individual is blind or otherwise vulnerable, making them an easy target for criminal. I'm especially speak of the 83-year-old example that I have up there is 83-year-old woman that has a tax abatement. It shows clearly that she's a tax abatement and what type of tax abatements on there. And if it ever pulls up, you'll be able to see that too. Yeah, give us a second. Sure. And also the other one that you might see clearly identifies that we have a veteran. And in the veteran cases too, you might find that if people know this code, you might know what degree of disability that this veteran has. And that's very important for safety reasons. So if it's a hundred, a hundred percent disabled veteran, then you're going to understand that someone can use them as a target. We don't want that to happen. So this bill closes those gaps while preserving public oversight of tax policy and other public assessment and abatement records not associated with identifying sensitive individuals or populations. So I wanna show you up there. You can see now this is from my home county and they do a really great job with this. I did put that blue over it 'cause I did not want to have anyone notice this person and target them either. So if it goes up a little higher, uh, if you can scroll up higher, you'll see right there on the bottom to the right it says the date that the payment was made and that it's a veteran abatement. That's something that we're hoping that we cannot have on there. There could be different codes or just generally not put on there. And then if you go down further, the next one, there we go. This is my friend. She's 83 years old. I definitely do not want her being targeted. It shows the different abatements that she has. And anyone that knows about these abatements will know clearly that this is for senior citizens, and I do not want senior citizens targeted this legislation. Reflex extensive collaboration with the Media Coalition, Utah Office of Data Privacy, the Herbert Institute for Public Policy and members of the Privacy Commission. It is a measured update that strengthens both transparency and privacy under grandma. I'd like to also invite up the Utah's Chief Privacy Officer, Chris Bramwell, for any technical questions that you may have. So he may help in answering those.

Christopher Bramwell. I am Chief Privacy Officer, director of the Utah Office of Data Privacy.

Did you want him to help with your presentation? Yeah, Sure. Would that be okay?

You. Um, so in my duties as Chief Privacy Officer, uh, we, we focus a lot on balancing privacy and transparency. So, uh, part of this bill, um, came from actual complaints that our data privacy ombudsman, ombudsperson in the state received, uh, relating to records that were being made public. Uh, but the individual felt should have been private and grandma didn't necessarily give the right allowance to make them private. Um, there's been multiple instances, not just in Utah but nationwide, especially in victim records, where, um, they will be made public if the law is not directly or correctly drafted or written to make it clear that you can redact victim names. And then this does result. And that those records then being on the public record into perpetuity, especially as this data is now scraped up and including included in private sector databases. Um, part of, uh, our office this last year also did research with the Herbert Policy Institute on veteran tax abatement, where we collected data from, I believe it was 27 of 29 counties in Utah, to just identify how do they classify, uh, and designate, uh, veteran tax abatement records. Uh, what's the retention associated with them? And what we found was it was actually, uh, very different in every single county. So there wasn't equal data rights or interest under the law. You would think it's the same data, same laws, but they did it very differently. So some counties, a lot of data was made public, some did redact it, uh, it was still public, but they'd redact before release or some made it private. So this is one of the recommendations that came from the Herbert Institute, was to make clear for vulnerable populations, uh, those that could be targeted for scams or it became essentially a short list of people that, um, you know, whether it was, uh, for theft reasons for break-ins or for others, um, they were just more sensitive and that this data, uh, should be made private by default while still leaving other tax abatements and assessments being public record when they're not related to, uh, such sensitive populations. Okay, thank you. Uh, do you still have some more presentation to make? Well, let me just clarify. I didn't mention also for people that are blind, we have people on the circuit breaker programs and the veterans program. Am I missing any of those? I think I've named them all that will be covered in this privacy statement. And so that completes my presentation. Thank you.

Representative Koford, Have we, there's a sub that needs to be adopted, right? Second sub, um, I move that we adopt second sub HB 3 25. That's in order. Um, would you like to speak to that?

I'll waive, Uh, discussion from the committee.

I would be happy to. I I move that we favorably recommend House Bill 3 25 second sub.

I appreciate the work that the sponsor has done in trying to protect some of the most vulnerable people out there and some of their data. And I'm in favor of this.

I'll waive. All right. Um, that's waived.

Meeting clerk for items on the house. Third reading calendar, House bill 3 25, government records, classification and amendments by Representative Shepherd.

Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro Tam, I move to adopt.

Yes. We just had one of the stakeholders came to us and wanted to be able to have us move one of the sections into one of, some language into a different section so it could be judge whether to have that released or not released information.

Thank you. This bill, house bill 3 25. It enhances the balance between the people's right to know and to the right to privacy. And so by clarifying records that are public and maybe kept private. So we work very closely with the media coalition, the Utah Office of Data Privacy Division of archives and record services and law enforcement on this bill. This also clarifies that public records of public funds are public records. This also does one of the thing that I think is one of the most important things it does. It protects those who have possibility of exploiting or scams, which are the elderly, the indigent, the uh, the blind, the active military, the disabled, milit veterans. It allows that their records for if they're on an abatement or that they are on any type of an exemption, that, that notice that information that is clearly online right now, that that is not online anymore. So it protects them. And that safety, it also takes the name and initial victim's report. It takes the name and it keeps that private unless it needs to be public. And so we feel that's really crucial to keep that, that was one of the concerns of the stakeholder, hence the third substitute.

Meeting clerk House Bill one 30. Employment.

Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro Tam, I move to adopt. The third sub Motion is to adopt third substitute house Bill 3 25.

Yes. We just had one of the stakeholders came to us and wanted to be able to have us move one of the sections into one of, some language into a different section so it could be judge whether to have that released or not released information.

I'll Waive submission is waived the motion to adopt third substitute house bill 3 25.

Thank you. This bill, house bill 3 25. It enhances the balance between the people's right to know and to the right to privacy. And so by clarifying records that are public and maybe kept private. So we work very closely with the media coalition, the Utah Office of Data Privacy Division of archives and record services and law enforcement on this bill. This also clarifies that public records of public funds are public records. This also does one of the thing that I think is one of the most important things it does. It protects those who have possibility of exploiting or scams, which are the elderly, the indigent, the uh, the blind, the active military, the disabled, milit veterans. It allows that their records for if they're on an abatement or that they are on any type of an exemption, that, that notice that information that is clearly online right now, that that is not online anymore. So it protects them. And that safety, it also takes the name and initial victim's report. It takes the name and it keeps that private unless it needs to be public. And so we feel that's really crucial to keep that, that was one of the concerns of the stakeholder, hence the third substitute.

I'll waive. Thank you. Summation is open is wa

Uh, I might, uh, appreciate an explanation of the problem here and what we're trying to solve and how we're solving it.

Thank you. What we're doing is, uh, updates grammar to enhance the balance of the people's right to known transparency to an individual's right to privacy by clearing and clarifying which records are public or may be kept private. Carefully worked on and has support from the Media Coalition, Utah Office of Data Privacy Division of archives and records services and law enforcement. The bill makes clear that records of public funds are public records ensuring clear accountability of taxpayer dollar. However, this bill protects sensitive personal information by removing victims' names from initial con contact reports. So victims of crimes are not automatically made public property tax abatements or exceptions for the blind. Indigent active military disabled veteran and elderly who may be pre scams exploitations are kept private. With that all yield.

Thank you. I'll waive summation. Move that house Bill 3 25 government records classification amendments be passed. And thank the body for letting me get myself gathered from my books on the floor.