This bill repeals a provision in law that allows an applicant for a hunting or fishing license to indicate that the applicant's e-mail address is confidential and that requires that information be held confidential by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. It creates a new section of law related to records held by the department and databases the department contributes to related to department licenses, permits, registrations and applications. The bill also defines "data," "commercial record," "noncommercial record" and "personally identifiable information" within a noncommercial record and within a commercial record. There is more personally identifiable information held confidential for a noncommercial record than for a commercial record. The bill provides exemptions to holding personally identifiable information confidential, including exceptions for law enforcement purposes in accordance with the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 16, section 805-A, fish and wildlife management purposes, other state and federal government entities and the person who is the subject of the record or that person's agent. The bill provides that data contained in a records database, whether individual or multiple records, maintained, administered or contributed to by the department that is considered confidential may not be publicly disseminated. The bill provides that the department may publicly disseminate nonpersonally identifiable data that is contained in a records database and may provide copies of individual records and whole or partial databases of records to individuals, businesses and other entities. The bill provides that the department may charge reasonable fees for both individual record requests and database requests at the expense of the person making the request. The cost of furnishing a copy of the record is not subject to the limitations of the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 1, section 408-A. The bill creates all-terrain vehicle and snowmobile accident reporting system exemptions that mirror the Department of Public Safety's exemption for motor vehicle crash report data that is held in the Maine Crash Reporting Online Search and Ordering Service. These provisions allow any nonpersonally identifiable all-terrain vehicle and snowmobile accident report data to be released to the public, and the cost to process these data requests and release the records is not subject to the limitations within the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 1, section 408-A. These provisions also create definitions for "data," "nonpersonally identifiable accident report data" and "personally identifiable accident report data." The bill also provides that all-terrain vehicle and snowmobile accident reports or statements contained within have specific uses for law enforcement purposes and the agency can disseminate individual records or many records within records databases in accordance with this law. All-terrain vehicle and snowmobile registration numbers may be released only under an affidavit restricting the use and misuse of registration numbers, and failure to comply with reporting obligations is a Class E crime.

Statutes affected:
Bill Text LD 2236, HP 1512: 12.10110