08-22-08 Fred Burnett v. County of Bergen and Bergen County
Clerk's Office
A-2002-06T2
In this Open Public Records Act (OPRA) case, we address the
question of whether the county clerk may redact social security
numbers (SSNs) from masses of realty documents requested for the
purpose of creating a commercial database to be accessed by
subscribers. OPRA requires the government custodian of the
requested records to redact that portion of the documents
disclosing SSNs unless the SSNs are part of a record "required
by law to be made, maintained or kept on file by a public
agency." N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5a. SSNs are included in recorded
realty documents as required by law.
