On 4 March 2024, a New Jersey legislator introduced Senate Bill 2930, which has the potential to disrupt New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA).
On 14 March 2024, the APG Board of Directors submitted a statement to several New Jersey legislators, expressing concern for the recent proposal:
The overly broad definition of "personal identifying information," will make it more difficult, if not impossible, to gain access to currently-public records which facilitate our clients in understanding their origins, acquiring citizenship, and distributing assets to heirs. The failure of this bill to place time limits on these protections would likely inhibit access to unredacted historical records, and would place additional burdens on government staff to perform tedious, time-intensive reviews of records before providing access.
APG’s comment also urges New Jersey legislators to reconsider the need for this proposal at all.
The full text of APG’s comments can be found at https://silkstart.s3.amazonaws.com/ec45ee24-724c-4afe-96d3-8893b3c5ba56.pdf.