Exemptions and Redactions

Every records fight eventually turns into an argument about one subsection. The agency points to a number; the requester reads the number and finds that it covers less than the agency thinks, or more. This lesson is a field guide to those numbers: where Idaho's exemptions live, which ones agencies use most, what each one leaves open, and how redaction is supposed to work. Law enforcement records get more depth in lesson 8; email and text messages in lesson 7; how to challenge a denial in lesson 9.

How exemptions work in Idaho

The starting point is 74-102(1): every person has a right to examine and copy any public record, and "there is a presumption that all public records in Idaho are open at all reasonable times for inspection except as otherwise expressly provided by statute." The words "expressly" and "statute" do a lot of work. An agency policy, a vendor contract, a promise of confidentiality to a person who sent a letter, or an employee's preference cannot create an exemption on its own. The Attorney General's Public Records Law Manual (July 2026) calls the right to inspect "absolute unless the record is exempt from disclosure by law."

The AG manual also lists an unreported Ada County district court ruling, Idaho Press Club, Inc. v. Ada County, summarized as holding that "A public record can only be withheld if there is a clear and statutorily-grounded justification." District court rulings do not bind other courts, but the summary states the rule agencies are trained on.

Two structural sections keep the list from sprawling:

• 74-104(1)(a) exempts any record "exempt from disclosure by federal or state law or federal regulations to the extent specifically provided for by such law or regulation." This is how federal student privacy law (FERPA), federal health privacy rules and other Idaho statutes reach into public records. The phrase "to the extent specifically provided" limits the reach to what the other law actually covers.
• 74-122 says any statute added on or after January 1, 2016 that makes records confidential must be placed in Chapter 1 of Title 74. A new confidentiality rule placed anywhere else is "null, void and of no force and effect" as to confidentiality. So for any confidentiality claim based on a post-2015 law outside Chapter 1, ask when it was enacted.

The AG manual says more than one hundred sections elsewhere in the Idaho Code relating to confidentiality are cross-referenced to the law. The cross-reference is a starting point, not proof: check the cited section's wording and date.

The exemption sections, one by one

Section	Main topics	Limits worth knowing
74-104	Records exempt by other federal or state law; court files closed under Idaho Supreme Court rules and judicial drafts; Office of Administrative Hearings decision-making drafts	Only "to the extent specifically provided"; OAH orders are not exempt under this section; judicial council ratings of judicial candidates are public
74-105	Law enforcement investigatory records (through 74-124); juvenile records; corrections records; critical infrastructure and security plans; cybersecurity systems; Health and Welfare child protection investigations; human rights complaints; criminal history; concealed weapon license records; decedent images (2026)	Infrastructure and cybersecurity exemptions exclude "public expenditure records" and apply only when disclosure is reasonably likely to jeopardize safety (infrastructure)
74-106	Personnel records; personal data (SSNs, redacted identifiers); tax returns; medical and counseling records; licensing applications; voter registration details; address confidentiality; officers' home addresses; fish and game license data	Pay, position and employment history stay public; voter registration data is largely public except listed items
74-107	Trade secrets; private business records required by law; appraisals before a sale or purchase; cost estimates before bids open; financial institution exams; economic development records; risk management and claims records; agency computer programs; academic research; assessor and tax confidential commercial data	Many are time-limited (until bids open, until research is released, until a claim closes); computer program exemption excludes the data
74-108	Archaeological and endangered species locations; oil and gas data; library patron identities; test questions to be reused; wildlife telemetry and camera locations	Location exemptions apply "if not already known to the general public"; generalized wildlife locations are not covered
74-109	Draft legislation and research requests to the Legislative Services Office; legislators' personal communications; private citizens' identifying information in letters to legislators; legislative audit and evaluation work papers; draft redistricting plans	Personal communications exemption covers only those that do not relate to public business; lobbyists, public officials and people writing for organizations are not "private citizens"
74-110	Court files on judicial authorization of abortion for minors	Narrow
74-111	Department of Finance securities investigations and filings	Director may decide otherwise under 30-14-607(c)
74-124	Investigatory records of law enforcement agencies	Only to the extent release would cause one of seven listed harms; basic incident and arrest facts are never investigatory records; inactive records must be released unless a harm applies

Outside those sections, 74-114 works the other way: for air quality, water quality and hazardous waste programs, it requires access to emission data, permit contents, effluent data and similar records "even if the record is otherwise exempt," with a narrower trade secret carve-out. And 74-120 limits use of agency lists as mailing or telephone lists, which is a use restriction more than an exemption.

Personnel records: what is public about public employees

74-106(1) exempts "all personnel records of a current or former public official other than" a list of items that stay public: "public service or employment history, classification, pay grade and step, longevity, gross salary and salary history, including bonuses, severance packages, other compensation or vouchered and unvouchered expenses for which reimbursement was paid, status, workplace and employing agency." The AG manual adds the reason in one sentence: "The Legislature acknowledges that there is some loss of privacy when one accepts a position supported by public money."

Everything else about an employee or applicant needs written consent: "information regarding sex, race, marital status, birth date, home address and telephone number, social security number, driver's license number, applications, testing and scoring materials, grievances, correspondence and performance evaluations." Names of applicants to classified or merit system positions need consent too, but "The name of the sole finalist to all other positions shall be available to the public."

School districts are different. Idaho Code 33-518 declares school district employee personnel files "confidential and excepted from public access under any provision of the Idaho Code, including, but not limited to, sections 74-102 and 59-1009, Idaho Code." The AG manual says this "contradicts, to some extent," the general personnel rule. The pay of a school district employee is still visible through district payroll and budget records, which are not the personnel file, but the file itself is closed.

Officials versus employees

The line between a public official and a public employee has decided cases. In Federated Publications, Inc. v. Boise City, 128 Idaho 459 (1996), the Idaho Supreme Court held, as the AG manual summarizes it, that names and resumes of applicants for appointment to a city council vacancy, and an internal review of a police shooting, "may be subject to disclosure," distinguishing a public official from an employee. A later Ada County district court ruling (Federated Publications v. City of Meridian, 1998) went the other way for applicants for parks and recreation director, reasoning that the director did not serve a fixed term, was not elected, took no oath and did not set policy. The AG manual's summary: resumes for a vacant elected office are likely public; those for an unelected employee may not be.

Investigations of employees

Internal investigations of employees sit where personnel and investigatory exemptions overlap. The AG manual (Question 22) says an administrative investigative report prepared in anticipation of litigation at the direction of the agency's attorney may be withheld, and that a report containing exempt personnel information may be withheld entirely, but a report that merely summarizes information available in other public records may not be protected. Cowles Publishing Co. v. Kootenai County Board of Commissioners, 144 Idaho 259 (2007), read the personnel exemption narrowly: the Reporters Committee summary says the court held that informal email between an employee and a supervisor about a county program was not a personnel decision and was public. Lesson 7 covers that case in more detail.

Privacy: the definition that decides close cases

Several exemptions turn on "unwarranted invasion of personal privacy," most importantly 74-124(1)(c) for law enforcement records. The term has its own definition in 74-101(17). It means either:

• "Disclosure of information used to identify, locate, or harass a juvenile, a victim of an alleged crime of mass violence or domestic violence, or a victim of physical or sexual abuse"; or
• "Disclosure where release of information is likely to violate legitimate and substantial privacy interests of the person identified when such interests are weighed against general public information."

The second part is a balancing test, and the word "substantial" sets a bar. Paragraph (b) adds a rule in the other direction: release of "the name, age, sex, and hometown of any deceased person after notification of next-of-kin" is not an unwarranted invasion and "shall be disclosed unless otherwise exempt."

The personal data rules in 74-106(4) are more mechanical. Social Security numbers are exempt. Other identifiers may be disclosed only in redacted form: initials of minor children; birth dates as XX/XX/birth year; the last four digits of financial account numbers, driver's license or state ID numbers, and business tax ID numbers. Those formats tell a custodian exactly how to redact, and tell a requester what a properly redacted record looks like.

The 2026 decedent-image exemption

Senate Bill 1250, signed March 26, 2026 and effective July 1, 2026 (Session Law chapter 148), added to 74-105 an exemption for "Any photographs or images of a decedent taken as part of a coroner death investigation or law enforcement investigation regardless of whether such investigation is active or not." Next of kin, in the order spouse, adult children, parents, siblings and grandparents, may get them once the investigations, the criminal case and all related appeals and civil proceedings are no longer active. The Idaho Capital Sun reported that the bill passed both chambers unanimously and followed an Office of Performance Evaluations report finding Idaho law did not prevent a coroner from sharing death investigation information. The current statute page prints the new paragraph as "[(25)](24)" because the bill gave it a number an existing paragraph already uses, so cite it by its words as well as its number.

Redaction: the duty to release the rest

74-112 is short and strong. If a record contains both exempt and nonexempt material, the agency "shall, upon receipt of a request for disclosure, separate the exempt and nonexempt material and make the nonexempt material available," and a denial "shall not be based upon the fact that such nonexempt material is contained in the same public record as the exempt material." The AG manual says agencies must do this "without exception."

The Idaho Court of Appeals applied that logic to law enforcement records in Hymas v. Meridian Police Department, 156 Idaho 739 (Ct. App. 2014). The AG manual summarizes the holding: the "on going nature of investigation into decedent's death was not a sufficient basis for police department to categorically deny petitioners' public records request in its entirety." 74-124 itself says the investigatory exemption applies "only to the extent" production would cause a listed harm, and 74-124(3) lists facts that are never investigatory records: time, date, location, nature and description of a reported crime, accident or incident; the name, sex, age and address of a person arrested (except as otherwise provided by law); the time, date and location of the incident and of the arrest; the crime charged; documents given to the arrested person; informations and indictments; and criminal history reports. Lesson 8 goes deeper.

Once a record is released, it is public for everyone. In Wade v. Taylor, 156 Idaho 91 (2014), the AG manual says, the court held a district court "lacked statutory authority to limit disclosure of public records to petitioner and his attorney." The Act has no category of records that are public for one requester and not another, with the exception in 74-113 that lets a person see records about themselves even when they are otherwise exempt.

What good redaction looks like

• Black boxes or white-out over specific words, not whole pages, unless the whole page is exempt.
• A note on or near each redaction, or in the cover letter, naming the statute: "74-106(4)(g) SSN," "74-107(1) trade secret."
• Redactions that cannot be undone. A black box drawn over text in a PDF, with the text still selectable underneath, is a common failure on the agency's side, and it can expose private information the law protects.
• A written denial or partial denial under 74-103(4) and (5), signed by the person responsible for the agency or a designee, citing the statute, stating the right to appeal and its deadline, and saying whether the agency's attorney reviewed the request or the agency chose not to have that review.

Idaho's statute does not require an index of withheld records like the federal "Vaughn index." A requester can still ask for a list of withheld documents by date, author and exemption, and a court reviewing a petition may examine records in camera (74-116(1), 74-124(4)).

The agency's side

Exemptions protect real interests: a domestic violence victim's address, a child's school record, a business's pricing formula, the location of a protected archaeological site, a security plan for a water treatment plant. Custodians who withhold those items are doing their job, and 74-118 gives agencies, officials and custodians immunity from liability for releasing a record when they acted in good faith trying to comply, which lowers the risk of releasing a close call. The tension is that most exemptions are permissive ("exempt from disclosure") and some personal-information rules are mandatory ("shall not be disclosed to the public without the employee's or applicant's written consent"). A good request acknowledges that, asks for redaction, and focuses the argument on the records where the exemption really does not fit.