Privacy in Texas for first responders

What protects you in Texas

Texas gives first responders several ways to keep their home address out of public records. Each one closes a different channel, and you file for each separately.

Government Code §552.117 lets peace officers, firefighters, EMS, security officers, and prosecutors keep their home address, home phone, emergency contact, and family information out of records their agency would otherwise release under the Public Information Act, the state open-records law. You elect this protection in writing. §552.1175 extends the same protection to judges, parole officers, jailers, and a longer list of public servants.

The election is per agency. File with each one that holds your records: your department, the county clerk, the appraisal district, and the elections office. Once on file, those fields are confidential.

Property and voter records tie your name to a home address and to the people who live there with you. Closing those channels is how you keep the job from following you home.

Property records, the channel most officers miss

Property tax records are public by default in Texas, and appraisal districts publish them online. Your name and home address sit in the appraisal roll and the online property search, where anyone, including a data broker, can pull them.

Tax Code §25.025 lets covered persons ask the appraisal district to redact their home address from those public records. Active and honorably retired officers qualify, and so do their spouses. The 2023 amendments (88th Legislature, S.B. 1525) expanded the covered-persons list. For federal and state judges, the Office of Court Administration notifies the appraisal district directly, so judges do not file themselves.

This is one of the most useful filings in Texas. Property records are a fast re-listing channel: brokers pick your address back up after a sale or transfer.

Form 50-284, the §25.025 filing path

The §25.025 protection runs through Form 50-284, prescribed by the Texas Comptroller. You file it with the county appraisal district that holds your records, not with the comptroller. One form per district. If you own property in two counties, you file two forms.

What goes on the form:

• Your full legal name and the property address you want redacted
• The category you qualify under, such as peace officer, firefighter, or judge
• The verifying agency and your status: active, retired, spouse, or surviving spouse
• Your signature under penalty of perjury

Supporting documentation depends on the category. Peace officers attach a copy of their TCOLE certification or department ID. Retirees attach a separation letter or pension verification. Spouses attach the officer's documentation plus a marriage license. Once the district processes the request, your home address is removed from the public appraisal roll, the online property search, and printed reports.

Federal and state judges do not file Form 50-284 themselves. The Office of Court Administration notifies the appraisal district under the 2023 amendments, and the redaction is applied on appointment.

Who's covered under §25.025

The 2023 expansion added several categories. The current covered list under Tax Code §25.025 includes:

• Current and former peace officers, plus their spouses, surviving spouses, and the adult children of current peace officers
• County jailers
• Texas Department of Criminal Justice employees
• Commissioned security officers
• District, criminal district, county, and municipal attorneys, plus their spouses
• Community supervision and corrections officers
• Federal criminal investigators
• US Federal Protective Service police and inspectors
• Office of the Attorney General law enforcement staff
• Juvenile probation and detention officers and their spouses
• Federal and state judges and justices, plus their spouses
• Texas Civil Commitment Office staff
• Members of the US armed forces killed or totally disabled in the line of duty
• Child protective services caseworkers and their spouses
• Elected public officers
• Firefighters and volunteer firefighters
• EMS personnel and their spouses
• Customs and Border Protection officers
• University healthcare employees at corrections facilities
• DFPS attorneys
• Higher-education governing board members and chancellors

If you fall in any of those categories and own property in Texas, file Form 50-284. Check the current statute for the full list before you file.

§552.117, the personnel-records election

§552.117 is the front-end shield. It covers current and former public employees, with named categories for peace officers, firefighters, EMS, security officers, and prosecutors. Some categories are protected automatically, but filing in writing keeps the record clean.

The election covers your home address, home phone, emergency contact information, family member information, and Social Security number held by the employing agency. Once filed, those fields are confidential under the Public Information Act, and the agency cannot release them in response to a records request.

§552.1175 extends the same protection to a broader list, built for retirees and for non-employees with public-safety roles. Honorably retired peace officers, jailers, judges, and parole officers get §552.1175 coverage on a separately filed election.

Both elections are per agency. File with every entity that holds your records: department, county clerk, appraisal district, elections office, and pension fund. The Texas Attorney General's office publishes guidance on the §552.1175 election, including the standard form. Most departments have an internal HR form that handles the §552.117 election at hire.

Driver license and vehicle records

Your license and vehicle registration carry a current home address, and both feed brokers through the state motor-vehicle database. Government Code §552.130 makes driver license and vehicle-record data confidential in agency records. Transportation Code Chapter 730, the Texas version of the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act, limits who the Department of Public Safety can release that data to. Ask DPS to flag your motor-vehicle record, and use the federal Lieu Act for broker-held driver data. Brokers re-scrape this channel after every renewal or address change.

How the statutes layer

The protections do not overlap. They stack, and each covers a different record system.

1. §552.117 election with your employing department at hire, often automatic.
2. §552.1175 election with every other agency that holds your data: county clerk, court administration, and pension fund.
3. Form 50-284 with the appraisal district in every county where you own property.
4. DMV confidentiality under §552.130 and Transportation Code Ch. 730 with the Texas Department of Public Safety.
5. Confidential voter registration under Election Code §13.004(c) with your county elections office.

Skip one and your data leaks through that channel. Brokers re-list officers after property transactions, voter-roll updates, and DMV record changes, and those are the three paths this layering closes off. The Anchorage PD traffic-reports exposure shows what happens when one channel is left open: the data flowed through the unprotected path and reached the public.

The state protections don't force broker removal

Texas has no law that requires a data broker to take down your listing. The elections above stop government agencies from releasing your address. They do not reach commercial people-search sites.

Removing broker listings is done through each site's own opt-out process, plus the federal route for driver and motor-vehicle data. That is the work Frontline Privacy handles.

Address Confidentiality Program through the OAG

The Texas Address Confidentiality Program runs through the Attorney General's office at texasattorneygeneral.gov/crime-victims. The authority is Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 58.052.

The program gives you a substitute mailing address that state and local agencies must use in place of your real one, and it forwards your mail through the OAG. Certification lasts three years.

Eligibility is limited to victims of family violence, sexual assault or abuse, stalking, child abduction, or human trafficking. Officers are not eligible by role alone. An officer who has been doxxed and stalked may qualify under the stalking category. The application is verified through a designated victim-advocacy organization, usually a local family-violence or sexual-assault program. The program adds a layer for officers with a documented threat, on top of the §552.117 and §25.025 filings.

The §42.074 anti-doxxing statute

Penal Code §42.074 took effect on September 1, 2023. It makes it a crime to post someone's residence address or telephone number with intent to cause harm to that person or their family. It is a Class B misdemeanor, and a Class A misdemeanor if bodily injury results.

The statute requires three things: the information posted has to be a residence address or telephone number, the posting has to be public, and the intent has to be to cause harm. Intent is the element most defendants challenge.

It does not compel a takedown. It is a criminal track, driven by the prosecutor, with the evidentiary bar of any criminal case. For most officers, §42.074 is the lever to put in front of the district attorney after a credible threat is documented, not the way to get a listing removed. Broker removal runs through opt-outs and the federal route; §42.074 sits behind that as a deterrent.

Colorado has a similar anti-doxxing law. A Denver case ended in a conviction, the first under that state's statute, after an activist posted a police commander's home address during a livestream (source). Texas has not yet had a widely reported §42.074 prosecution, but the statute is in effect. See our writeup of the Denver police commander doxxing case.

What still leaks

Three sources stay open even with §552.117, §25.025, and DMV protections filed:

1. Civil court filings. Divorce decrees, tax suits, and small-claims filings often carry your home address in the body of the document. The county clerk publishes the docket, and many counties publish full filings. The §552.117 election does not apply to court filings; that is a separate request through the court.
2. Voter rolls before a confidentiality affidavit. Standard Texas voter rolls are public, and commercial brokers buy them. Election Code §13.004(c) keeps a registration confidential for judges, U.S. marshals, U.S. attorneys, their family members, and the spouse of a peace officer; an active peace officer qualifies through the §552.1175 cross-reference, not a direct grant. It is not the default. File a notarized confidentiality affidavit separately with your county elections office.
3. Out-of-state and commercial brokers. Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified, and the rest are not bound by Texas law. They pulled your data from public-record aggregators before your election was filed, and they buy from commercial feeds that ignore state confidentiality rules.

Retirees, families, and federal officers

Honorably retired peace officers. §552.1175 covers retired officers explicitly, and §25.025 covers retirees and their spouses. Retirement is the time to layer the elections, because agency-side filings can lapse if they are not separately renewed.

Spouses and adult children. §25.025 covers spouses, surviving spouses of peace officers killed on the job, and the adult children of current peace officers. Family information is protected under the officer's §552.117 election. The adult children of retirees are not covered; the statute draws that line.

Federal officers. Federal criminal investigators, US Federal Protective Service officers, and CBP officers are covered under §25.025 and §552.1175. Federal judges run through the Office of Court Administration on appointment. For broker removal, the federal Lieu Act is the route for driver and motor-vehicle data.

Laws that work for you here

• Gov. Code §552.117: the core protection. File the written election with each agency that holds your records. Free, and no court order needed.
• Gov. Code §552.1175: the extension covering judges, parole officers, jailers, and additional categories. Same election process.
• Tax Code §25.025: file Form 50-284 with your county appraisal district to redact your home address from property tax records. Closes the appraisal-district channel that drives a lot of broker re-listings.
• Election Code §13.004 and §15.0215: file a notarized confidentiality affidavit with your county elections office to keep your voter registration confidential. §13.004(c) directly names judges, U.S. marshals, U.S. attorneys, their family members, and the spouse of a peace officer; an active peace officer's own registration rides on the §552.1175 cross-reference.
• Gov. Code §552.130 and Transportation Code Ch. 730: driver license and motor-vehicle record confidentiality on application.
• Penal Code §42.074: the criminal anti-doxxing track. Class B misdemeanor for posting an address with intent to harm, Class A if injury results.
• Address Confidentiality Program: a substitute-address program for victims of family violence, sexual assault, stalking, and human trafficking, run by the Attorney General's office.

What we handle that the state doesn't

The Texas elections shut down the agency disclosure paths. They do not touch commercial people-search sites. That is the part we handle.

We find your listings across the major data-broker and people-search sites, file the opt-outs, and keep checking, because these sites re-post information after a property sale, a voter-roll update, or a new public record. When your information comes back, we file again.

State confidentiality also does nothing once your data has already been breached. In 2025, a City of Houston file-sharing link exposed about 7,500 Houston firefighters' Social Security numbers (source). Once personal data is out, it can spread to broker and people-search sites, and a state election does not pull it back. Removing the listings one by one is the recovery path.

See what's exposed