Address confidentiality programs (ACP) by state

What an ACP actually is

An address confidentiality program is a state-run system that gives you a substitute mailing address. State and local agencies use the substitute on their records instead of your real home address. Mail sent to the substitute gets forwarded to your real address by the state.

Most ACPs are run out of the Secretary of State's office or the Attorney General's office. You enroll, you get assigned a participant number and a substitute address, and from that day forward you use the substitute on every form a state or local agency hands you.

ACPs exist because of the Violence Against Women Act. The act pushed states to protect DV survivors. Most programs later expanded to cover sworn personnel, judges, prosecutors, and witnesses. A few have added reproductive-health workers. Eligibility varies state to state. Read your statute, not a third-party summary.

The biggest thing an ACP does isn't privacy from data brokers. It's that when someone FOIAs your county property file, your voter registration, or your DMV record, the substitute address is what they get back.

What ACPs do not protect

This is the part most cops miss.

ACP binds state and local government agencies. It does not bind private data brokers, county recorders for documents already on file, federal agencies that don't participate, or anyone who got your address before you enrolled.

If your name is already on Spokeo, BeenVerified, and TruePeopleSearch — and it almost certainly is — enrolling in an ACP today does not remove those records. The brokers don't read state ACP rolls. They scrape voter files and property records. They have your data. The ACP only stops the next refresh from finding new state records under your real address.

If you bought your house five years ago, the deed recorded with your county is permanently public. ACP enrollment doesn't unwind that. The county clerk redacts going forward, not backward.

This is why ACP is one layer in a stack, not the whole stack. The other layers are continuous broker removal, court-record redaction, and social-media lockdown. Run a free scan to see what state ACP can't reach.

States with strong ACPs

These states have programs that have been operational long enough to be reliable, with eligibility that explicitly includes sworn personnel or judges.

California — Safe at Home. Run by the Secretary of State. Originally for DV survivors, expanded to include reproductive-health workers and certain abortion providers. Most law-enforcement officers in California rely on the California ACP plus a separate confidentiality election under Government Code §6254.21 for property records. Two filings, two separate processes.

Texas — Address Confidentiality Program. Run by the Office of the Attorney General. Eligibility includes DV survivors, sexual-assault survivors, stalking survivors, and trafficking survivors. Texas does not include sworn personnel by default — officers use Property Code §25.025 instead, which restricts disclosure of LEO addresses by appraisal districts and county clerks. See the Texas ACP page for the operational distinction.

New Jersey. New Jersey runs a small ACP through the Attorney General, but the heavy lift for officers in NJ is Daniel's Law — a state statute that lets covered officers, judges, and prosecutors sue data brokers that don't remove their home address inside ten business days. $1,000 per violation. Most NJ officers use both: the ACP for state-agency records, Daniel's Law for the broker layer.

Florida — §119.071 exemption + Marsy's Law. Florida doesn't run a single named ACP. It runs a series of public-records exemptions that lets eligible categories — sworn personnel, judges, prosecutors, code-enforcement officers, child-welfare workers, certain medical staff — opt their home addresses out of the public-records production. Filed as a written request to each agency. See the Florida Marsy's Law page and Florida Statutes §119.071.

Illinois — Judicial Privacy Act. Illinois went stronger for judges than most states after the 2020 attack on Judge Esther Salas's family. The Judicial Privacy Act covers judges, their spouses, and minor children. Enrollment is through the Illinois Supreme Court.

Common gotchas

A few patterns that catch people every year.

You still have to enroll separately at each agency. Many ACPs require you to opt in at every state and local agency that holds your records. Voter registration, vehicle registration, property tax, court clerk, professional licensing — each one a separate form. The Secretary of State doesn't propagate your enrollment automatically.

The substitute address is not a real mailbox. It's an address operated by the state. They forward mail. Some states forward weekly, some daily. Time-sensitive mail can get delayed by 5-10 business days. Don't use the substitute for anything that requires same-day pickup.

Federal agencies usually don't participate. Your IRS records, your federal court filings, your USPS change-of-address — none of those care about your state ACP. If you're a federal officer, the Lieu Act is the analogous federal-level tool, but it only covers federal judges and immediate family.

Property records already on file stay public. ACP enrollment doesn't redact deeds, mortgages, or tax assessments that recorded before your enrollment date. Some states allow petition-based redaction of historical records — California, Texas, Illinois have processes — but those are separate filings.

ACP enrollment is public-records-discoverable in some states. A few states publish the enrollee list itself (without the real address). If they know you're enrolled, they know you've moved. That narrows their search. Read your state's statute on what's published.

How to enroll

The mechanics are similar across states. Variations exist — read your statute.

1. Confirm eligibility. Most ACPs require you to be in one of the named categories. Some require a sworn affidavit. Some require a referral from a victim-services agency or your department.
2. Apply through the SoS, AG, or designated office. Most states have an online or PDF application. Expect to provide your real address (it's confidential to the program), an emergency contact, and a list of household members you're enrolling.
3. Receive your substitute address and participant number. You're assigned an address that looks like a normal street address. Use it on every form going forward.
4. Notify each agency that already has your real address. This is the manual part. Voter registration, DMV, property tax, court clerk, licensing board, school district — each one gets a written notice referencing your ACP enrollment and the substitute address.
5. Renew on schedule. Most states require renewal every 2-4 years.

Then check your state page for the specific application portal, statute, and known gotchas.

Where ACP fits in the stack

Think of it as one layer of three.

State ACP closes the agency-disclosure path going forward. Continuous broker removal closes the data-broker path that ACP can't reach. Court-record redaction closes the historical-court path that neither of the others reach.

Most working officers we talk to have ACP enrollment but no broker coverage. The result: their substitute address is on every state form, but their real address is still on Spokeo. The adversary doesn't FOIA the SoS — they Google the name.

Run a free scan to see what's exposed on the broker layer. ACP doesn't fix it. Continuous removal does.