Which records and offices are covered?
| Record or recipient | Published mechanism | Important limit |
|---|---|---|
| Employer or retirement record | Chapter 66, section 10B protects specified criminal-justice and unelected legislative personnel contact information. | The statute identifies the custodians and permits specified disclosures. [1] [2] |
| Records identifying protected categories | Separate language reaches specified victims and reproductive or gender-affirming care circumstances. | The identifying-record condition matters. [1] |
| ACP application | Apply through a designated Application Assistant. | The program has its own survivor and protected-healthcare categories. [3] [4] |
| Voter information | Most voter and election records can be requested from local election offices. | The Secretary's guidance describes public access with applicable exceptions. [5] |
| Commercial security duties | 201 CMR 17 establishes safeguards for specified residents' personal information. | A safeguards requirement is distinct from a general deletion entitlement. [6] |
Which records receive section 10B protection?
Chapter 66, section 10B names law-enforcement, judicial, prosecutorial and other public-safety or criminal-justice personnel. It also addresses unelected General Court personnel. The reviewed paragraph protects specified home and personal contact details when employers or the identified retirement bodies hold them. That custodian requirement is part of the rule. It cannot be removed when describing the protection. [1] [2]
Other language in the section addresses victims and specified reproductive or gender-affirming healthcare circumstances. Those categories have a separate condition involving records that identify the protected status. A following paragraph concerns public employees' contact information in identifying records. The provision therefore contains several related protections rather than one uniform request that closes all records about a person. [1]
Why do permitted disclosures and dates matter?
The statute permits particular disclosures to employee organizations, qualifying retired-public-employee organizations and criminal-justice agencies. These recipients and conditions matter even where information is not an ordinary public record. A surviving disclosure needs evaluation under the relevant paragraph. It does not automatically show that the custodian ignored section 10B, and the section does not establish universal confidentiality for a parcel or deed. [1] [2]
The reviewed second paragraph reflects the amendment effective November 5, 2025 under chapter 16, section 5. An older description can miss the current text. The Address Confidentiality Program follows another route through designated Application Assistants. Its published eligibility includes survivor categories and people engaged in specified legally protected healthcare activity. Those application conditions should be checked through the program itself. [7] [3] [4]
What remains a separate election or business question?
The Secretary of the Commonwealth explains that most voter and election records are public and can be requested locally. That general access description is not a finding that every field or every protected participant must appear in a released file. Someone seeking a voter-specific restriction should examine the election office's applicable procedure rather than send an employer-record request under section 10B. [5] [1] [2]
Massachusetts also imposes security duties through 201 CMR 17 for covered records containing residents' personal information. The reviewed regulation addresses minimum safeguards for paper and electronic records. That is a different legal task from removing an address from a public agency index. This page makes no omnibus deletion-law finding from the safeguards regulation, and it does not infer missing rights from a search result. [6]
Open the Massachusetts privacy-rights tool. Compare the home-address laws, address confidentiality programs, consumer privacy rights and voter-record rules behind this page.
Related state references. Connecticut and New York. Return to the state directory.
Which sources were reviewed?
Checked October 24, 2026. Scheduled source review January 24, 2027. Each linked provision governs its own record channel and statutory conditions.