Senate Bill 6123 (S-3882.1), introduced in the 69th Legislature, 2026 Regular Session, amends RCW 42.56.250 to specify and expand categories of employment and licensing information that are exempt from public inspection and copying. The exemptions cover test and exam materials; most applications for public employment (excluding vacancies in elective office); educator professional growth plans submitted through eCert; certain personal and contact information of employees, volunteers, and their dependents; identities of persons seeking advice from agencies; investigative records relating to alleged unfair practice, discrimination, harassment, or similar internal investigations; criminal history checks for board staff finalists; limits on public access to photographs and birth month/year with news media exceptions; protections allowing anonymity for employees who are survivors of certain offenses or participants in the state address confidentiality program; GPS data that would reveal an employee’s residence; information about “future voters”; voluntarily submitted personal demographic details; and benefit enrollment information held by the Health Care Authority for public and school employee benefit programs. The bill also exempts cosmetology licensure compact data shared by the Department of Licensing. The bill makes procedural changes to how these exemptions are handled. Investigative records are exempt while an investigation is active; after an agency notifies the complaining employee of the outcome, disclosure is limited and requires redaction of names, images, job titles, email addresses, and phone numbers of complainants, accusers, and witnesses and alteration of recorded voices (preserving inflection and tone) unless the individual consents. If the complainant is an elected government official, that official’s name and title are not redacted after notification. Agencies must notify employees, any union representing them, and the requestor when a public records request seeks records located exclusively in personnel, payroll, supervisor, or training files, and must state that nonexempt information will be released at least ten days after notice; employees may seek to enjoin release under RCW 42.56.540. A sworn, verified statement asserting survivor status expires after two years and may be renewed; documentation an agency keeps to administer the employee-protection exemption is itself confidential. This bill modifies existing public records law by adding and clarifying exemptions and procedural rules; it is a statutory amendment and not a creation of new criminal offenses or changes to criminal penalties in the text provided. Section 1 of the act expires June 1, 2028, and Section 2 takes effect June 1, 2028. Important context is missing: the reenacted/amended text of RCW 42.56.250 is truncated in the provided material, so any differences between sections, additional sections, specific operative language, penalties, or enforcement provisions elsewhere in the bill cannot be assessed from these excerpts.

If enacted, the bill would give public employers and agencies broader authority to keep many types of personnel and investigation-related details out of public records—for example by redacting names, job titles, contact info and images from investigatory files and altering recorded voices unless a person consents. Agencies would also treat GPS data showing employee residence, benefit enrollment details held by the Health Care Authority, voluntarily submitted demographic details, certain photographs and birth month/year, and criminal-history checks for board staff finalists as nonpublic in many cases. Employers would have to notify employees, their union, and the requestor when records are only in personnel/payroll/supervisor/training files and wait at least ten days before releasing nonexempt material, and employees can submit sworn, verified statements (which expire after two years) or participate in an address confidentiality program to gain extra anonymity; agencies must keep the supporting documentation themselves confidential. The groups most affected are public agencies (which will face added work and costs to verify claims, redact information, alter audio while preserving inflection, maintain confidential documentation, and provide required notices), employees and volunteers seeking privacy protections, unions that will receive notice of requests, the news media (which still has some access rights such as to photos and full birth dates but faces new limits and exceptions), and bodies like the Health Care Authority and Department of Licensing receiving or sharing records. The bill likely increases agencies’ administrative responsibilities and legal risk if they fail to follow notice or redaction rules, while giving employees clearer options to limit disclosure; however, some key text is missing or truncated in the provided excerpts, so exact implementation details and any additional sections, penalties, or effective dates are unclear.