was created to ensure an officer, employee, or contractor of a government agency who creates or receives records on a privately-owned device or account provides that information to the government’s public information officer or officer’s agent for the purposes of protecting information and ensuring transparency.

S.B. 944 allows governments to obtain records stored on an officer’s, employee’s, or contractor’s private device. The Office of the Attorney General and courts have ruled for years that records held on private devices or in private accounts of officers, employees, or contractors are still records and are subject to records management and public information laws.    gives the governing body of a local government the right and proper legal channels to recover any records that reside in the possession of an individual.  S.B. 944 also establishes that an officer, employee, or contractor does not have a personal or property right to records created or received while acting in an official capacity.