H. B. 4500
(By Delegate Louisos)
[Introduced February 15, 2002; referred to the
Committee on the Judiciary.]
A BILL to amend and reenact section thirteen, article eight,
chapter five-a of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine
hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to confidentiality of
certain public records.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section thirteen, article eight, chapter five-a of the
code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 8. PUBLIC RECORDS MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION ACT.
§5A-8-13. Essential state records -- Confidential records.
(a) When a state record is required by law to be treated in a
confidential manner and is an essential state record, the
administrator in effectuating the purpose of this article with respect to such state record, shall protect its confidential
nature.
(b) Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the
contrary, any document that becomes a state record or local record
as defined in section three of this article and which contains a
person's social security number or any other personal information
of a sensitive nature, such as driver's or operator's license
number, military service identification number or the like, shall
have the social security number and other information redacted when
the document is presented for recording
and from any copy made of
the document.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to protect the
confidentiality of social security numbers and other similar
information from being recorded in public records and copies being
made available to the public.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.