Privacy in Oregon for first responders

What protects you in Oregon

Oregon's main lever is ORS 192.368, the public-records nondisclosure provision. It lets you ask a public body to stop releasing your home address, personal phone number, or personal email if disclosing it would put your safety or a household member's safety at risk. You submit a written request to each public body that holds the record, with evidence of the risk, and the Attorney General sets the procedure. The protection is general, not officer-specific, but police, firefighters, and EMS qualify when the safety case is real. It does not reach county property and lien records.

DMV records get a separate rule. ORS 802.250 lets eligible public employees, including police officers and others whose work brings them into contact with offenders, list a work address instead of a home address on DMV records. You file for it with the DMV. A federal law, the DPPA, sets a floor in every state that limits who can pull DMV records at all.

The Address Confidentiality Program (ORS 192.820 to 192.868) gives participants a substitute Salem PO box to use on public records. Eligibility is limited to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, or human trafficking, so it helps an officer only in those circumstances. The program states that it does not guarantee anyone's safety.

Voter rolls have two paths. If you're in the ACP, you can register to vote using the substitute address. If you're not, you can ask your county elections official for a personal safety exemption, which keeps your residence address off the public voter record once you show that your safety or a household member's safety is at risk.

There's also a way to sue after the fact. ORS 30.835 lets you sue someone who knowingly publishes your personal information to stalk, harass, or injure you, when that disclosure actually results in you being stalked, harassed, or injured. You can recover economic and noneconomic damages, attorney fees, and other equitable relief, and you have two years to file. Unlike New Jersey's Daniel's Law, which lets covered officers demand brokers take their address down, this is a back-end lawsuit, not a removal mandate.

What Oregon does not cover

1. No broker-removal statute. No Oregon law forces people-search sites to remove your home address the way Daniel's Law does in New Jersey. ORS 30.835 is a lawsuit after harm, not a takedown right.
2. Property records. Oregon has no statutory redaction process for property records, and ORS 192.368 specifically excludes county property and lien records. Deeds, tax records, and assessor filings publish your name and address.
3. Out-of-state brokers. Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified, and similar sites do not honor ORS 192.368. They pull from out-of-state aggregators that copied your information before you filed anything.
4. Court filings. Civil filings on OECI often include addresses in the body of the document. A 192.368 request reaches records an agency would otherwise release, not the contents of a court filing.

Why this matters if you're on the job

Portland has seen this happen. In July 2022, the Portland Police Bureau began withholding the names of officers involved in shootings after two officers were doxxed: their names, home addresses, and phone numbers were published online, and the FBI investigated the threats. In July 2025, the Department of Homeland Security reported that Portland-area groups published the names, home addresses, and family details of ICE and other federal officers, followed by fliers in their neighborhoods.

A published home address ties your name to where you live and to the family who lives there with you. Oregon's laws can pull that address off the agency side. They do nothing about a broker in another state that is still selling it.

What we do

Oregon's protections cover the agency side. The people-search sites don't honor them, and listings come back after removal. We find where your information is exposed, file opt-outs across the major people-search and data-broker sites, and keep re-checking for records that reappear. When a site needs something from you to process a removal, we tell you clearly. Run a free scan to see what's exposed today.