FRONTLINEPRIVACY

Privacy in Ohio for first responders

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

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Safe at Home Address Confidentiality Program

Ohio 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

  • ORC §149.43(A)(7) / §149.45 — peace officer, prosecutor, federal law enforcement officer, judge, firefighter, EMT, corrections, and youth services employees can submit a written request on the AG's form to redact residential and familial information from public records, including internet-published records.
  • ORC §319.28(C)(1) — designated public service workers (or qualifying retirees, or spouses) can submit an affidavit to the county auditor to remove their name from internet-accessible property records and the general tax list, replacing it with their initials.
  • ORC §4501.271 — DMV record confidentiality for designated public service workers.
  • ORC §111.44 — Safe at Home substitute-address program; Ohio is one of the states where sworn officers are eligible directly, not only as crime victims.
  • ORC §2913.02 (revised 2022) — strengthened criminal penalties for distributing personal information of officers and other protected classes with intent to threaten or intimidate.

Applicable laws

What protects you in Ohio

Ohio Revised Code §149.43(A)(7), worked together with §149.45, exempts the residential and familial information of peace officers, prosecutors, federal law enforcement, judges, firefighters, EMTs, corrections employees, and youth services employees from public-records disclosure. The exemption applies on written request — you file the AG's standard form with the agencies that hold your records, specifying the personal information to be redacted and where it appears. Once filed, those fields are confidential, including in any internet-published records.

ORC §319.28(C)(1) closes a piece the public-records exemption misses: designated public service workers (or qualifying retirees and their spouses) can file an affidavit with the county auditor to strip their name from internet-accessible property records and the general tax list, replacing it with initials. That's the lever for the property side, which is where Ohio brokers do the most damage.

Ohio's Safe at Home program (ORC §111.44) is one of the few state ACPs that lets sworn officers enroll directly, not only as crime victims. DMV confidentiality runs through ORC §4501.271 on the same designated-worker basis. The 2022 amendments to ORC §2913.02 strengthened the criminal penalties for someone who distributes personal information of officers with intent to threaten or intimidate.

The remaining gap: Ohio does not have a broker-removal statute reaching data brokers. (No equivalent of New Jersey's Daniel's Law — that's the NJ statute that lets covered officers sue brokers directly for failing to remove their home address.) Officers in Ohio can't sue a broker themselves the way an NJ officer can.

What still leaks

Three sources stay open in Ohio:

  1. County court records. Cuyahoga, Franklin, and Hamilton in particular run heavy online docket systems. Civil suits, divorce, traffic court — addresses appear in filings unless redacted at filing time. Federal PACER cases are entirely outside state protection.
  2. Property records. County recorders publish deed transfers and mortgage filings online. Brokers scrape these directly. The §149.43 election doesn't reach property records unless you separately file with the recorder, and many counties don't honor that for the property record itself.
  3. Out-of-state and commercial brokers. Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified, and the rest source from out-of-state aggregators and don't honor Ohio law.

Laws that work for you here

  • ORC §149.43(A)(7) / §149.45 — file the AG's written request with each agency holding your records to redact residential and familial information.
  • ORC §319.28(C)(1) — file the affidavit with the county auditor to strip your name from internet-accessible property and tax records.
  • ORC §4501.271 — DMV confidentiality for designated public service workers.
  • ORC §2913.02 — criminal penalty for malicious distribution of officer personal information. Reactive, not preventive — but a real lever if you've been targeted.
  • Safe at Home program (ORC §111.44) — substitute-address program through the Secretary of State. Sworn officers are directly eligible in Ohio, in addition to victims of domestic violence, stalking, sexual assault, and human trafficking.

What we sweep that the state doesn't

The state elections close the agency disclosure path. We handle the broker path. We file standard opt-outs across 200+ people-search sites and re-check every two weeks. After any property transaction or court filing in Ohio, we re-check inside 30 days because those events drive the fastest re-listings on the broker side.

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