House bill would create statewide address confidentiality program for survivors, peace officers and corrections staff

Representative Donna Mears introduced House Bill 104 on April 8, 2025, proposing a statewide address confidentiality program for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, peace officers, correctional officers and their families.

The bill would direct the Department of Administration to operate an address-protection program that forwards mail received by the state to an enrollee’s confidential home address, requires state and municipal agencies to accept the program PO box, prohibits registered sex offenders from enrolling, allows law-enforcement access to confidential addresses only by search warrant and establishes penalties for unlawfully revealing a protected address. The bill requires the department to adopt implementing regulations and sets the bill’s effective date as Jan. 1, 2026.

“We are creating an address protection program for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, peace officers, and correctional officers, and their families,” Representative Donna Mears said when she presented the bill. Talia Ames, staff to Representative Mears, reviewed the bill’s sections for the committee, describing eligibility and procedural rules and noting the bill would prevent the department from charging a fee.

Invited testimony came from victim-advocacy and corrections representatives. Keeley Olsen, identified as executive director of STAR (a Anchorage-based victim services organization), told the committee that address confidentiality programs are “essential tools” that make it safer for stalking and high-risk victims to participate in everyday life. Olsen said programs are available in most states and that, in her experience, they are typically inexpensive to operate and used only when other protections have failed.

Randy McClellan, president of the Alaska Correctional Officers Association and a Department of Corrections staff sergeant, testified that correctional officers face threats and that Alaska is among a small number of states without an address-protection program for law-enforcement personnel. “This legislation would be a powerful tool to help protect correctional officers, law enforcement at large and their families,” McClellan said.

Committee members asked how the program would work with services that require physical addresses — voter registration, utilities or school enrollment — and how municipal records such as property tax rolls would be handled. Talia Ames and witnesses said the bill requires agencies to accept the PO box and pointed to existing confidentiality measures in some municipal systems; they also noted some municipal records (for example, property tax rolls) are handled at the borough/municipal level and would not be changed by this state program.

Committee discussion also addressed program scale and duration. Witnesses described existing programs in other states with small enrollment counts (one example cited 68 participants after 17 years) and emphasized that many eligible people do not enroll because of program trade-offs (delayed mail, loss of direct deliveries such as subscriptions). Witnesses and the sponsor said the program is intended for people with ongoing safety risks and that individual needs and enrollment durations will vary.

The committee did not take a vote on HB104 at this hearing; the item was heard as an introductory presentation with invited testimony and follow-up questions. The committee indicated HB104 will receive further consideration at a later meeting.

Ending: The committee scheduled additional public testimony on HB104 for its next meeting on Thursday, April 10, 2025.