Virginia Freedom of Information Act; use of government email accounts required. (HB308)

Introduced By

Del. Rick Morris (R-Carrollton)

Progress

Introduced
Passed Committee
Passed House
Passed Senate
Signed by Governor
Became Law

Description

Virginia Freedom of Information Act; use of government email accounts required. Requires that any person elected, reelected, appointed or reappointed to any public body not excepted from FOIA must use only official government-provided email accounts to conduct public business The bill also provides that public officers, appointees, and employees shall use only official government-provided email accounts to conduct public business. However, if a public officer, appointee, or employee inadvertently uses a nongovernment email account to conduct public business, then the email and email address shall be forwarded to the appropriate official for retention as designated by the public body. The bill contains a technical amendment. Read the Bill »

Outcome

Bill Has Failed

History

DateAction
01/04/2016Committee
01/04/2016Prefiled and ordered printed; offered 01/13/16 16101186D
01/04/2016Referred to Committee on General Laws
01/07/2016Impact statement from DPB (HB308)
01/13/2016Impact statement from DPB (HB308)
02/16/2016Left in General Laws

Comments

Waldo Jaquith writes:

Many governments (e.g. rural counties and towns) do not have the capacity to provide email accounts to their employees, and certainly not to elected officials and appointees. It's not clear to me whether it is permissible, under this bill, for a government to say "OK, here's a Gmail account we made for you—consider it your government email account."

ACLU-VA Open Government, tracking this bill in Photosynthesis, notes:

The ACLU of Virginia supports this bill.