Privacy in District of Columbia for first responders
What state law protects, what still leaks, and what we sweep beyond it.
Run a free scan. No signup.Address Confidentiality Program
District of Columbia maintains a state-level program that lets eligible officers, judges, and other protected workers use a substitute address for public records.
Apply or learn more →Public-records carve-outs
- D.C. Official Code §2-534(a)(2), §2-534(a)(3)(C) — FOIA exemptions for personal-privacy invasion and law enforcement investigatory records.
- D.C. Official Code §4-555.05 — ACP participants get address shielding across District agencies, including Office of Tax and Revenue indexing for property records and voter registration.
- D.C. Official Code §50-1401.01b — DMV record confidentiality.
Applicable laws
What protects you in the District of Columbia
DC is thin on officer-specific privacy law. There's no broker-removal statute on the books — no equivalent of New Jersey's Daniel's Law (the state law that lets covered officers sue data brokers for failing to remove their home address) — and no public-records exemption written for sworn personnel as a category.
The main lever is the Address Confidentiality Program under D.C. Official Code §4-555.01 et seq. ACP officer eligibility is unclear in the statute — the program is built for victims of domestic violence, sexual offenses, stalking, and human trafficking. If you qualify under those categories, §4-555.05 directs the Office of Tax and Revenue not to index your name in online databases for assessment, tax, and recorded-document searches. The agency isn't required to redact existing records, but new indexing and disclosure runs through your substitute address.
DMV records are protected under §50-1401.01b. Voter registration confidentiality runs through the same ACP framework under §4-555.05(c).
The general FOIA exemptions in §2-534(a)(2) and §2-534(a)(3)(C) apply when disclosure would invade personal privacy or compromise law-enforcement investigations. They're applied by the agency responding to the request — there's no specific filing process for an officer to invoke them in advance.
What still leaks
- Out-of-state brokers. Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified, and the rest don't honor DC law. They source from federal-area aggregators and commercial feeds.
- Existing property records. ACP indexing protection runs forward. The Office of Tax and Revenue isn't required to redact records that already exist. Brokers that scraped before enrollment still have the data.
- Federal records. DC's protections don't reach federal court filings on PACER, federal employee records, or federal property holdings. Federal protections — DPPA on motor vehicle records, the Lieu Act on federal judges — apply on their own terms.
Laws that work for you here
- D.C. Official Code §4-555.05 — ACP-based shielding across DC agencies, including OTR indexing and voter registration. Eligibility is built around victim categories — confirm with the program before assuming officer coverage.
- D.C. Official Code §50-1401.01b — DMV record confidentiality.
- D.C. Official Code §2-534(a)(2), §2-534(a)(3)(C) — FOIA exemptions for personal privacy and law-enforcement investigatory records. Applied by the agency, not filed by you.
What we sweep that the District doesn't
DC hasn't passed officer-specific privacy law on the broker side. The federal DPPA is the only floor on motor vehicle data. ACP gives indexing protection going forward but doesn't reach the brokers that already scraped your address. That's where we operate. We file opt-outs across 200+ people-search sites and re-check every two weeks because re-listings happen.