Confidential Employee Information for Open Records Requests

Personal Safety Exception

Government Code Section, Section 552.152, provides for confidentiality of information concerning public employee personal safety. Fiscal Management reports can be set up to exclude employees who would be under substantial threat of physical harm if information such as work location were to be made public. Payments made prior to the notification of the employee’s need for confidentiality must be manually masked from display on public websites or in subsequent open records requests.

If your agency has an employee who qualifies for the personal safety exception, please contact Ruth Soucy in Open Records in the Comptroller’s office at (512) 475-0411 or Ruth.Soucy@cpa.texas.gov.

Note: This provision is situation specific, but the Comptroller’s office has held that a personal safety exception may require a protective order to be in force. A protective order fits the guidelines of the statute that “disclosure of the information would subject the employee or officer to a substantial threat of physical harm.”