Happy Holidays from Texas Civil Service and More

Important New Rule

On Friday, December 3, 2010, the Texas Supreme Court held that the birth dates of state employees is confidential. The Court found that the employees' privacy interest was significant enough to outweigh the negligible public interest in disclosure,

The Court said:

"Consistent with the federal courts and those in other states, we conclude that disclosing employee birth dates constitutes a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, making them exempt from disclosure under Section 552.102." Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts v. Attorney General of Texas, No. 08-0172. Tx. Sup. Ct., 12/03/2010

The effect of this opinion is that in all future Public Information requests, the birth date of employees can be redacted and a request for an opinion on that matter made to the AG. For information releases that are not the result of a Public Information request, the birth date can be
redacted before release.

While this case is directed at State employees, the reasoning and rationale for its result is applicable to other governmental employees at the county, city or district level.

It is difficult to predict what the Legislature's response will be to this case, but until that occurs, this case is controlling and it makes employee birth dates confidential.

There will be more on this development to come, please watch for developments.