Quit trying to hide Washington public employee birthdates. Privacy argument fails
We can almost set our watches to it. Every year Washington state lawmakers consider at least one bill that would stymie public access to government records, and every year, this Editorial Board stands alongside other media outlets and says: “Don’t do it.”
This year’s attempt to erode the Public Records Act carries a familiar refrain: shielding public employee birthdates from public inspection. It also seeks to purge payroll deductions from public view, but that’s the lesser of two evils on this ill-conceived measure.
One would think Olympia lawmakers would have gotten the message by now: Mess with the law that voters adopted nearly 50 years ago and you mess with us, and by that we mean every Washingtonian who knows democracy can’t exist without transparency.
The state Constitution is on our side. Last fall the Washington Supreme Court ruled that birthdates are indeed disclosable public records. Of course there should be exceptions, but victims of domestic violence or other violent crimes already have avenues to keep their data safe through exemptions, court injunctions and confidentiality programs.
If proponents of House Bill 1888 take this bill to its most illogical conclusion and it passes, the ability of watchdogs to hold governments accountable will take a hit.
Think we’re overstating our case? In newsrooms across the state, reporters routinely use birthdates to investigate tips from whistleblowers, sometimes uncovering inappropriate behavior. If journalists are blocked from comparing records across databases, the names of public employees will get lost in a haystack of Robert Smiths or Mary Johnsons.
Confirmation of birthdates is how journalists find criminal records; it’s how they discover if a public employee has been fired for misconduct, or conversely, has somehow avoided consequences.
Public employee unions and their Democratic proxies like to claim birthdates fall under the broad purview of privacy concerns. It’s easy to stoke fear that revealing birthdates will give criminals wide-open opportunity to steal identities.
We don’t buy it. More than a name and a birthdate are needed to set up a line of credit or open a bank account. Public employees can breathe easy that their residential addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and social security numbers are already exempt from disclosure.
To protect privacy, lawmakers should focus their energy on something far more formidable: the proposed Washington Privacy Act. The real threat to consumers is data mining and automated profiling, not birthdates that can be readily found through numerous sources.
Washington citizens should have zero tolerance for officials who want to lower the curtains on how the people’s business is being conducted. In 2017, when legislators claimed they were immune to prying eyes, news organizations including The News Tribune joined the Associated Press in taking them to court and largely prevailed.
Longtime Washington Speaker of the House Frank Chopp wisely kept previous versions of birthdate-exemption bills from advancing. New Speaker Laurie Jinkins should show the same mettle and ensure that HB 1888 doesn’t make it to a floor vote.
The bill is scheduled for executive session in the House State Government & Tribal Relations Committee Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.
Can information from public records be abused? You bet. But so can the trust held by state and local government employees if they’re allowed to operate outside the public eye.
California and Oregon lawmakers, under pressure from powerful public employee unions, have already made the mistake of exempting birthdates from disclosure. We hope Washington will buck that discouraging West Coast trend and continue to hold the line.