A couple of vendors have approached our Sheriff's Office with proposals to make county motor vehicle accident reports available to the public on the vendors' websites. Under the vendors' proposals, all of the Sheriff's accident reports would be uploaded to the vendors' websites. Then the vendors would make them available to the public for a fee. The vendors would forward a portion of the fee to the county. Theoretically, the vendors would sell accident reports only in accordance with Transportation Code section 550.065 (only to persons who provide two or more of the following: the date of the accident; the specific address or highway or street where the accident occurred; or the name of any person involved in the accident). Apparently, quite a few Texas municipal police departments are making their accident reports available through these vendors. And the vendors say that they are "in the process" of signing up some Texas counties. I have some legal concerns about what they have proposed and would be interested in hearing from anyone whose county is considering or has considered doing this (or anyone else who would like to weigh in on it).

The biggest concern I see immediately (presuming compliance otherwise with the Transportation Code's requirements) is the fact that the Public Information Act requires all requestors to be treated equally, and bears a fairly hefty consequence for inadvertent disclosure of material that might be protected. That consequence includes the potential for criminal ramifications if the information is confidential, but more broadly, implicates waiver. More particularly, aside from "front page" information on incident reports, many offices routinely seek to withhold disclosure under section 552.108 in cases involving active investigation or a disposition other than a conviction or deferred adjudication. But you can't selectively withhold, since requestors must be treated alike. Giving reports to someone who pays, but withholding them from others, may receive a chilly reception from the AG and from sundry courts around the state. Incidentally, we are not one of those counties that has been approached about and has agreed to this arrangement (at least to my knowledge).

What authority would the Sheriff's office have to give the accident report to the prospective vendor? The vendor does not fit within the the list authorized by subsection (c) of section 550.065 of the Transportation Code.

Since the vendor does not fit within those provisions I don't see how you upload the information to this vendor.

Thanks, Scott and Ray, for your replies. Scott has raised some valid concerns that I had not yet thought much about. My primary concern up to this point has been the threshhold question of whether the release to the vendor would be in compliance with section 550.065 of the Transportation Code. Like Ray, I am concerned that the statute does not authorize the county to upload the information to the vendor's website in the first place. If we get past that hurdle, then, as Scott has pointed out, there are additional concerns.