BILL ANALYSIS
AB 130
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Date of Hearing: May 13, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Kevin De Leon, Chair
AB 130 (Jeffries) - As Amended: April 27, 2009
Policy Committee:
JudiciaryVote:10-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill provides controls on the release of marriage records
comparable to existing controls on birth and death records.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires the State Registrar, within the Department of Public
Health, to keep marriage record indices confidential and
exempt from the Public Records Act.
2)Provides that the State Registrar, local registrar or county
recorder may provide a certified copy of a marriage record to
an authorized person, as defined consistent with current law,
who submits a statement sworn under penalty of perjury that
the requester is an authorized person.
3)Provides that, when a requester does not meet the requirements
of an authorized person, a certified copy may be provided but
the document shall be an informational certified copy and
shall be redacted, as specified.
4)Requires an applicant for a certified copy of a marriage
record to pay an additional $1 fee, $0.65 of which is to be
used by the State Registrar, upon appropriation by the
Legislature, to develop safety and security measures to
protect against fraudulent use of marriage, birth and death
records, and $0.35 of which is to be used by the public
official charged with the collection of the fee to defray
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additional security costs.
5)Requires the Vital Records Protection Advisory Committee,
which is studying and making recommendations to protect
individual privacy, inhibit identity theft, and prevent fraud
involving birth and death certificates while still providing
needed access to those records to those seeking them for
legitimate purposes, to include marriage records in its study.
FISCAL EFFECT
It is estimated that the additional $1 fee will generate annual
revenues of $420,000, of which $273,000 will be used by the
State Registrar and $147,000 will be used by local registrars
and recordings to implement the bills requirements.
COMMENTS
1)Background. In order to prevent fraud and identity theft, SB
247 (Speier)/Chapter 914 of 2002 and SB 1614 (Speier)/Chapter
712 of 2002, established controls for the release of, and
access to, birth and death records. This followed a report in
November 2001 that the state had sold the birth records of
more than 24 million Californians which were then posted on
the Internet. Subsequent to this revelation, a hearing by the
Senate Insurance Committee revealed that the State Registrar
routinely sold electronic compilations of public record
information to anyone who could pay for the records and that
the data were sold with no restrictions on their use. The
records sold covered all births from 1905 to 1995, and
included the county of birth, the person's full name, date of
birth and the person's mother's maiden name. (A mother's
maiden name and date of birth are common personal identifiers
used by financial institutions to determine if a person may
have access to an individual account.
This bill, sponsored by County Recorders Association of
California, seeks to apply the same controls of the 2002
legislation to marriage records.
2)Current law , for purposes of these provisions, defines
"authorized person" as any of the following:
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a) The registrant or a parent or legal guardian of the
registrant.
b) A party entitled to receive the record as a result of a
court order, or an attorney or a licensed adoption agency
seeking the birth record.
c) A member of a law enforcement agency or a representative
of another governmental agency who is conducting official
business.
d) A child, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, spouse, or
domestic partner of the registrant.
e) An attorney or other party representing the registrant
or the registrant's estate.
f) A funeral director who has contracted with any of the
individuals specified above to provide funerary services.
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081