Creates the Sexual Assault Survivor Empowerment and Privacy Protection Act

House Bill 843 enacts new Chapter 24 of Title 44 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes, establishing the Sexual Assault Survivor Empowerment and Privacy Protection Act. The statute creates a mechanism allowing sexual assault victims to request that governmental entities and third parties remove or refrain from publishing their personal information, defined to include home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, social security numbers, driver's license numbers, vehicle identifiers, marital status, date of birth, and employment or school locations of family members. A protected individual is defined as any victim of a sexual offense under Louisiana Revised Statutes 15:541, and they may submit written requests via certified mail or email to remove such information from existing publications or prevent future publication. The statute establishes specific timelines requiring public bodies to acknowledge receipt within five days and remove already-published information within seventy-two hours, while third parties must accomplish removal within seventy-two hours of receiving the request.

The law directly impacts sexual assault survivors seeking privacy protection, as well as governmental entities and third parties that publish or maintain personal information. Survivors gain a statutory right to request removal of sensitive identifying information from public websites and publications, providing them with legal recourse and control over their personal data. Governmental entities such as courts, administrative agencies, and record-keeping offices must implement procedures to receive removal requests, verify requester status as protected individuals, and comply with removal timelines or face civil liability. Third parties, including media outlets, data aggregators, and online platforms, face identical removal obligations and additionally expose themselves to damages claims for violations, creating significant compliance burdens for organizations that publish information online.

This statute operates within Louisiana's broader public records framework under Title 44 and interacts with existing criminal law protections for sexual offense victims. The provision explicitly exempts governmental entities from criminal prosecution under this statute, applying criminal penalties only to private persons who knowingly publish a survivor's personal information when they know or reasonably should know such publication poses an imminent and serious threat resulting in assault, harassment, trespass, or malicious destruction of property. The law carves out an exception for information publicly posted by the office of the secretary of state, preserving access to official state records. Survivors may pursue mandamus actions for declaratory and injunctive relief against both public bodies and third parties, with prevailing parties recovering attorney fees, and third party violators also facing damage awards, creating a dual civil and criminal enforcement mechanism.