Comptroller Combs is Working to Protect Public Employees Against Identity Theft
February 2009
Related Documents
(in chronological order)
- Request for Information
- Comptroller's Brief to Attorney General
- Attorney General's Ruling OR2006-01938
- Comptroller's Original Petition (3MB)
- Intervenor's Motion for Final Summary Judgment (4.8MB)
- Comptroller's Cross-motion for Summary Judgment and Response to News Motion for Summary Judgment (3.1MB)
- Memorandum of Amicus Curiae in Support of Comptroller's Cross-motion for Summary Judgment and Response to News Motion for Summary Judgment (1.3 MB)
- Attorney General's Reply to Comptroller's Cross-motion for Summary Judgment (4.2 MB)
- Order on Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (300 KB)
- Comptroller's Brief to Third Court of Appeals (3.2 MB)
- Attorney General's Brief to Third Court of Appeals (2.1 MB)
- Intervenor's Brief to Third Court of Appeals (4.5 MB)
- Comptroller's Notice of Intent to Present Oral Arguments to the Third Court of Appeals (79 KB)
- Ruling by Third Court of Appeals (199 KB)
- Comptroller's Petition for Review by Supreme Court of Texas (609 KB)
- Dallas Morning News' Cross-petition for Review by Supreme Court of Texas (327 KB)
- Attorney General's Response to Petitions for Review by Supreme Court of Texas (1.4 MB)
- Dallas Morning News' Response to Petition for Review (1.48 MB)
- Comptroller's Combined Reply Brief (846 KB)
- Comptroller's Brief on the Merits (1.87 MB)
- Attorney General's Brief in Response to Comptroller's Brief on the Merits (4.27 MB)
- Dallas Morning News' Response to Comptroller's Brief on the Merits and Brief on the Merits (4.98 MB)
- Comptroller's Combined Reply Brief and Response to Cross-Petition (1.26 MB)
Texas Comptroller Susan Combs is committed to protecting the privacy of Texas citizens and to ensuring that their personal information cannot be obtained for fraudulent purposes such as identity theft. Currently, Comptroller Combs is appealing a court decision that would place the personal information of more than 144,000 state employees in jeopardy. Until this issue is resolved by the courts or by the legislature, the Comptroller will not release information regarding state employees’ dates of birth.
In 2005, this agency received a request under the Texas Public Information Act for the personal information of all state agency employees, including peace officers and corrections officers. The Texas Public Information Act is designed to ensure that the people of Texas have full access to the workings of government, but this request seemed to go beyond that goal by seeking dates of birth for all state agency employees. This agency offered to provide age as a substitute for date of birth, but the requestor insisted on receiving the specific date of birth. Later, during a hearing in district court, the requestor’s attorney was asked if two items of information—month and year—would be sufficient information; however, the requestor’s attorney stated his client was entitled to the complete birth dates including the specific month, day and year. What is particularly worrisome about releasing exact dates of birth in this context is that each date of birth is linked to an employee’s full name, title, salary, work address and other detailed information that could be used by identity thieves. Additionally, the information is in electronic format and could easily be transferred from requestors with a legitimate public interest into the hands of identity thieves and information brokers intent on preying on public servants and their families.
Because of privacy concerns and the exposure of government employees to possible identity theft and fraud, this agency referred the request to the Texas Attorney General for a ruling regarding whether dates of birth must be released in combination with first, middle and last names, places of employment, title, salaries, identification as peace officers and other detailed personal information. In response to our request for a ruling, the Office of the Attorney General issued Open Records Letter No. OR2006-01938. That ruling acknowledged the dangers of identity theft but concluded that under existing law, governmental employees’ dates of birth are made public. This affects not only state agency employees, but also employees of school districts, universities, counties, cities and other local entities.
The Comptroller sued to protect the specific dates of birth of state agency employees from wholesale release. That lawsuit is currently pending before the Supreme Court of Texas. Documents relating to that litigation may be reviewed on this page.
In recent years a similar lawsuit was filed by the State Bar of Texas to protect its members’ dates of birth and other identifying information. You can read more about that lawsuit, the State Bar of Texas vs. the Attorney General of Texas, Cause No. GV 403520, on the State Bar of Texas’s Web site. In that lawsuit, the judge found that the dates of birth of members of the State Bar of Texas are confidential and should not be released.
Texas Comptroller Susan Combs places a high value on the privacy of all Texas citizens, including governmental employees. In a 2006 report released by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, more than 250,000 complaints regarding identity theft were filed in 2005. Of those complaints, more than 26,000 were filed by Texans. The outcome of this lawsuit has tremendous consequences for state and local entities and their employees. We invite you to review the documents on this page and encourage you to educate yourself about identity theft. Please feel free to contact us at open.records@cpa.state.tx.us should you have comments about our litigation relating to the release of dates of birth.