Senate Bill No. 3
(By Senators Hunter and Minard)
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[Introduced January 8, 2003; referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary.]
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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 and information
contained therein; and creating misdemeanor criminal offense
and penalty.
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;
misdemeanor offense and penalty.
(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.
(c) Any person who violates any of the provisions of this
section is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof,
shall be fined not to exceed one thousand dollars or confined in
the county or regional jail for a period not to exceed ninety
days, or both fined and imprisoned.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to protect the
confidentiality of social security numbers and other similar
information recorded in public records and to prevent copies of
the confidential information from 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.