FRONTLINEPRIVACY

Privacy in Maine for first responders

What state law protects, what still leaks, and what we sweep beyond it.

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Address Confidentiality Program

Maine maintains a state-level program that lets eligible officers, judges, and other protected workers use a substitute address for public records.

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Public-records carve-outs

  • 33 MRSA §651-B — registers of deeds must redact home address from publicly available property records on written request, at no fee.
  • 29-A MRSA §255 — DMV record confidentiality for public-safety personnel.
  • 21-A MRSA §122-A — voter-registration confidentiality for ACP participants.

Applicable laws

What protects you in Maine

Maine doesn't have a first-responder-specific public-records exemption. 1 MRSA §432 has a general personal-privacy carve-out, but it's case-by-case — there's no blanket protection for officer addresses the way there is in NJ or TX. That's the gap to know up front. The 2023 swatting of Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is the operational example. Her home address was posted online within hours of a high-profile decision. The swatting call followed the next night. Maine had no statutory hook to lean on.

What Maine does have is a property-record redaction at 33 MRSA §651-B. File a written request with your county register of deeds and they're required to establish a process to redact your home address from publicly available property records, at no fee. That's the most practical lever for Maine officers worried about the deed-and-tax-record path into broker feeds.

29-A MRSA §255 gives DMV confidentiality for public-safety personnel — a real protection at the BMV that covers active and retired sworn personnel. 14 MRSA c. 765 is Maine's anti-doxxing statute, but it covers minors only. There's no broker-removal statute for adult officers — no equivalent of New Jersey's Daniel's Law (the NJ law that lets covered officers sue data brokers for failing to remove their home address).

What still leaks

  1. Public records absent the property redaction. Without §651-B on file, the register publishes the deed and the brokers scrape it. The redaction is opt-in, not automatic.
  2. Civil court filings. Divorce, custody, and small-claims filings often include addresses in the body of the document. State court protection here is limited.
  3. Out-of-state and commercial brokers. Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified, and the rest source from out-of-state aggregators. They don't honor Maine law. The state-side protections don't reach them.

Laws that work for you here

  • 33 MRSA §651-B — file a written request with your register of deeds to redact your home address from property records. No fee. The most-used Maine lever for officers.
  • 29-A MRSA §255 — DMV confidentiality designation for public-safety personnel. File with the BMV.
  • 5 MRSA §90-B (Address Confidentiality Program) — substitute-address program through the Secretary of State. Officer eligibility is not explicit; primarily for stalking and domestic violence victims. Worth asking ACP staff directly.
  • 21-A MRSA §122-A — alternative voter-registration procedure for ACP participants.

What we sweep that the state doesn't

Maine has no officer-specific broker-removal statute and no general public-records exemption built around first responders. The §651-B and §255 redactions handle the agency-side leaks; the federal DPPA is the floor for DMV-sourced data. The broker side is what's actually leveraged here, and that's where we operate. We file opt-outs across 200+ people-search sites and re-check every two weeks. Your address belongs to you. We close the broker path that runs around the state's narrower protections.

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