Privacy in Minnesota for first responders

What protects you in Minnesota

Minnesota's strongest lever is Safe at Home, the state address confidentiality program under Minn. Stat. Ch. 5B. It's run by the Secretary of State. You enroll, you get a substitute address, and state and local agencies must use that address instead of your real one. One enrollment carries the same designation through property records, voter rolls, and DMV records.

Judicial officials and their adult children who don't live with them get a separate confidentiality designation under Minn. Stat. § 13.991. You invoke it by filing a written notification, on a form from the Minnesota Judicial Branch, with the responsible authority that maintains the records. This one is narrow: it covers judges and judicial staff, not patrol officers or most first responders.

Minnesota has no broad broker-removal statute. There is no state equivalent of New Jersey's Daniel's Law, which lets covered officers sue a data broker that refuses to remove their home address. That gap has consequences. In June 2025, a gunman killed state Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband and shot and wounded Senator John Hoffman and his wife. The FBI reported that his vehicle held a list of 11 data-broker websites and notebooks naming more than 45 state and federal officials, with home addresses next to the names. Safe at Home closes agency-side disclosure, but it doesn't reach the broker layer where that kind of targeting starts. See the Hortman attack and how broker data built a target list.

What still leaks

1. Civil court filings. MNCIS is searchable statewide. Divorce, civil suits, and small-claims filings can carry an address in the body unless it's redacted at filing. Safe at Home does not reach documents already on file.
2. Pre-enrollment broker data. Once a broker has your address, Safe at Home does not pull it back out. The substitute-address designation blocks future agency disclosure, not the listings a broker already holds.
3. Out-of-state and commercial brokers. Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified, and the rest pull from out-of-state aggregators. They do not follow Minnesota law.

Laws that work for you here

• Safe at Home (Minn. Stat. Ch. 5B): enroll through the Secretary of State for a substitute address. It ties to your property, voter, and DMV designations.
• Minn. Stat. § 5B.05(d) and § 13.045: file a Real Property Notice with the county responsible authority to shield your address in property records, ideally before a home purchase.
• Minn. Stat. § 13.82: classifies peace officer personal data as protected under the Government Data Practices Act.
• Minn. Stat. § 13.991: the judicial-officials confidentiality designation, invoked by written notification to the responsible authority on a Minnesota Judicial Branch form.
• Minn. Stat. § 171.12: driver and vehicle record confidentiality through the Department of Public Safety.
• Minn. Stat. § 201.081, Subd. 2 and § 201.091, Subd. 4(d): voter-roll confidentiality for Safe at Home participants.

What we do that the state doesn't

Safe at Home shuts down agency-side disclosure for participants. It does not touch the brokers, and the Hortman case shows how broker data can feed targeting. We file opt-outs across the major people-search and data-broker sites, then keep checking on a recurring basis because re-listings happen. We watch more closely after a property transaction or court filing that can push your address back into circulation. We handle most of that work and tell you clearly when a site needs something from you.

The broker layer is also where supply-chain leaks land. In mid-2020, during the unrest after George Floyd's death, the BlueLeaks release exposed data held by a Hennepin County Sheriff's Office vendor; reports put the number affected at roughly 1,400 to 1,500 people, including law enforcement and critical-infrastructure personnel. Safe at Home can't reach a breach like that. The state gives you the substitute-address mechanism. We work the broker path that runs around it.

Run a free scan to see which sites list your address right now.