Texas Address Confidentiality Program

What Texas ACP does

The Texas Address Confidentiality Program lets survivors use a substitute mailing address in place of their real home address. It was created in 2007 and is now codified in Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 58, Subchapter B. The Office of the Attorney General runs it and assigns each participant a substitute address, a PO box the OAG manages. State and local government agencies in Texas must use that substitute address wherever the participant's home address would otherwise appear.

That covers voter registration, DMV records, and other agency records that collect a home address. State and local agencies have to accept the substitute address in place of your real residential, business, or school address, though an agency can ask the OAG for an exemption where it needs your true address to carry out a duty imposed by law. The OAG keeps the participant's real address confidential and forwards first-class mail from the substitute PO box to the real address.

Who's eligible

Eligibility is limited to specific survivors:

• Survivors of family violence
• Survivors of sexual assault or abuse
• Survivors of stalking
• Survivors of child abduction
• Survivors of trafficking of persons
• Members of the same household as a qualifying participant, including spouses, children, and dependents

Most people enroll with help from a local family violence shelter, sexual assault program, or victim services office. You can also apply on your own if you have a protective order or documentation of qualifying abuse.

Unlike California's Safe at Home, Texas ACP does not list reproductive healthcare workers as a separate category. Eligibility runs through the survivor categories above.

How to enroll

1. Contact a local victim services agency, or start on your own if you have a protective order or qualifying documentation. The OAG lists options at texasattorneygeneral.gov.
2. Complete the application and provide documentation of qualifying status, such as a police report or protective order.
3. Receive your substitute address and enrollment certificate. Use the substitute address on records going forward.

Enrollment lasts three years and can be renewed. There's no fee.

What it doesn't reach

Texas ACP binds government agencies, not private companies. Four gaps stay open:

1. Data brokers and commercial data sources: Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified, and similar sites hold addresses they collected before you enrolled, or that they buy through commercial channels like credit-header data, marketing lists, and leaked databases. The program doesn't reach them.
2. Federal records: Federal court PACER filings, federal agency records, and federal voter registration aren't bound by Texas law.
3. Private parties: Banks, landlords, employers, and doctors still have the address you gave them over the years. ACP doesn't reach back and clean those.
4. Property records from before you enrolled: Records of property you owned earlier stay public unless you separately file under Tax Code §25.025 with the county appraisal district.

What we do

Texas ACP closes the government disclosure path going forward. It leaves the broker path open. Frontline Privacy works that path: the historical listings and commercial data feeds the program doesn't reach.

We find your listings on the major data broker and people-search sites, file opt-out requests, and keep checking for records that come back. Those listings are how a stranger turns your name into your home address and the people who live there. If you're a Texas ACP participant, individual broker coverage stacked on top of the program handles the historical-records sweep the program leaves.

For first responders in Texas, three more state laws let you close specific records. Each is separate from ACP, and you can use them whether or not you qualify for ACP:

• Government Code §552.117: keeps a covered person's home address, home phone number, emergency contact information, Social Security number, and family-member information out of records released under the Public Information Act. For current and honorably retired peace officers the exemption applies automatically. Some other covered roles have to file a written election with the agency holding their records. If your agency doesn't hand you a form, the agency confidentiality election template covers the standard fields.
• Tax Code §25.025: lets you ask the county appraisal district to keep your home address confidential in property appraisal records. The covered list is long. It includes current and former peace officers and their spouses and adult children, county jailers, TDCJ employees, commissioned security officers, firefighters, volunteer firefighters, EMS personnel, federal and state judges, US Marshals, district and county attorneys, and Customs and Border Protection officers. File Form 50-284 with your county appraisal district.
• Election Code §15.0215: keeps a residence address off the public voter registration list. This one is narrower. It covers federal and state judges, certain federal officials, and their family members. Most peace officers and firefighters get voter-registration confidentiality through ACP participation instead.

These three are filings you make yourself with the agency, appraisal district, or voter registrar that holds the records. Frontline Privacy doesn't submit them for you; we work the data-broker path. Use the ones you qualify for.