Bill in NC state legislature may end public access to Wake County mugshot database

A Wake County website that lists people who get arrested and their charges also lets users see booking photos dating back to 2008, but a new bill in North Carolina could change that.

Senate Bill 660 would exempt booking photos from the state’s public records law, though it would allow release of individual photos in response to written requests. The bill has passed the Senate and is in the House, but even if it does not pass, Wake County plans to restrict access to the Wake County City/County Bureau of Identification database while complying with state law that makes jail booking photos a public record.

The bill was introduced to hinder websites that publish mugshots online and charge people money to have them taken down. It would make publishing photos on these sites subject to criminal charges, as well as civil penalties.

Several Wake County commissioners backed the bill during a county Public Safety Committee meeting Monday.

Commissioner Vickie Adamson said mugshot databases are especially unfair because photos remain online even of people who have not been convicted or have been acquitted of crimes.

Board Chair Matt Calabria said the state may make the decision for the county, but either way, measures should prevent abusing the mugshot database, like setting up a CAPTCHA test — an “I am not a robot” test — as a barrier against automated retrieval of the mugshots.

“You put the slightest bump in the road, it’ll shut them down,” Calabria said.

Commissioner Sig Hutchinson said the commissioners will send a note encouraging all Wake County House members to support the bill.

Wake County’s mugshot database

Sam Pennica, director of the county’s Records and Identification Division, said the county used to get many requests for mugshots when news organizations published mugshot galleries online.

So Pennica set up the mugshot database to let media outlets and the public get the photos themselves.

Few news organizations publish mugshots as they once did, reducing the need for the database now.

Pennica said he now wants arresting agencies to distribute mugshot photos, as legally required, so his department doesn’t have to handle it.

If the bill passes, Pennica said he could call the vendor and get the site with the mugshot database closed to the public immediately.

Want a mugshot?

The bill would allow law enforcement to release a mugshot “for law enforcement purposes,” like to search for a suspect, comply with discovery requirements, comply with a court order and for criminal proceedings in district court.

People would also be able to apply to a law enforcement agency for a mugshot to be released. People would have to request the booking photo, the date and approximate time of arrest, and the name of the person in the photo, as well as pledge not to post the photo on a website where one would have to pay to have it taken down, according to the bill.

If photos are posted to a website, and someone asks for them to be taken down, with documentation that charges have been dismissed or people acquitted, and a website does not take the photos down, there could be penalties of at least $100 a day after a seven-day deadline to remove the photos.

Questions about public record restrictions

Brooks Fuller, director of the N.C. Open Government Coalition and assistant professor of journalism at Elon University, said while the bill is not particularly restrictive, he does have some concerns.

“Any effort to roll back public records laws should be viewed with skepticism and with a critical eye,” he said. “But this is just putting limits on the booking photograph.”

Fuller said there should be more guidance from the legislature about what factors a law enforcement agency must consider when choosing whether or not to release a photograph.

There should also be grounds for expedited appeal, he said, so that those denied photos could be heard as soon as possible.

“It’s always good to have avenues into court if a media company or a newspaper is denied access to what ought to be a public record,” he said.