Does v. Seattle Police: Washington Supreme Court ruling on who must protect officer identities in public-records requests

What happened

After the January 6, 2021 rally in Washington, D.C., the Seattle Police Department's Office of Police Accountability investigated whether any SPD officers who attended had broken the law or department policy. Members of the public then filed Public Records Act requests for the records that would identify those officers.

Washington's Public Records Act (PRA) is the state's version of a FOIA request. It lets anyone ask a government agency for its records, and the default is disclosure. SPD reviewed the requests, found no exemption that applied, and notified the officers that it intended to release the records.

The officers sued as John and Jane Does to block release. The King County Superior Court denied their request for an injunction, finding they had not shown the records were likely exempt. The officers appealed.

The 2023 Court of Appeals ruling

In 2023, the Court of Appeals reversed. It held that the First Amendment protected the officers' identities and that SPD had to show disclosure served a compelling state interest before releasing the records. In effect, the ruling pushed agencies to assert constitutional privacy on behalf of the officers.

The 2025 reversal

On February 13, 2025, the Washington Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals in a unanimous decision and sent the case back to the trial court. Two holdings matter for officers in Washington.

First, public employees have no constitutional privacy interest in attending a highly public event. The court found that showing up to a large, public political gathering is not the kind of activity the constitution shields.

Second, an agency does not have to assert constitutional privacy exemptions for third parties. Under RCW 42.56.540, the agency has the option to notify the people named in the records, but that notice is discretionary, not required. If notice is given, the burden of going to court to block release sits with the affected officer.

The court also ruled that the officers could no longer proceed anonymously in future proceedings. The Washington Supreme Court denied the officers' motion for reconsideration in April 2025. The officers then took the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to block release. Justice Kagan denied their emergency stay application on July 8, 2025. As of mid-July 2025, they were still seeking review from the full Court.

Why this case matters

This is the clearest recent statement of where state public-records law stops protecting officer identities. PRA-style laws in Washington and most states default to disclosure. Exemptions exist, and an agency can flag an obvious one. But the agency is not your lawyer, and it will not litigate to keep your name out of a record.

The 2023 reading would have forced Washington agencies to make constitutional privacy calls for their employees. The Supreme Court rejected that. The agency gives notice. After that, the officer acts or the records go out.

What this means for officers in Washington

If you are a sworn officer in Washington, RCW 42.56.540 lets your agency notify you when a request implicates records about you. But that notice is discretionary — the statute gives the agency the option to send it and wide discretion over whom to notify, so do not count on it. Confirm with your agency's legal or public-disclosure unit whether and how notice reaches you, and track requests that might name you yourself.

Once you get notice, the clock is on you. To block release, you have to file your own action and seek an injunction. The agency will not do it for you, and it will not hold the records indefinitely while you decide.

What this case does not change

Statutory exemptions still apply. Washington law exempts certain personal information of public employees, such as home addresses and personal phone numbers, from disclosure. The Does case is about a constitutional privacy claim, not those statutory exemptions. Confirm which exemptions cover your role before you rely on them.

The case also does not change the wider exposure picture. A public-records disclosure is one channel. Data broker and people-search sites are another. The same home address that a statutory exemption keeps out of an agency file can still appear on a site like Spokeo or Whitepages, because the broker pulled it from a different source.

What an officer should do

Keep your contact information current with your agency so any notice that is sent actually reaches you. Because the agency is not required to notify you at all, watch for public-records requests that might name you rather than waiting on a notice that may never come.

Know in advance which statutory exemptions apply to your role, so you can move quickly when a notice arrives.

Address the broker layer separately, because statutory PRA exemptions do not reach it. Frontline Privacy files opt-out requests across the major data broker and people-search sites and keeps checking for listings that come back. See Washington's state page for what state law offers.

The ruling puts responsibility for protecting an officer's name in a Washington public-records response on the officer.