Georgia General Assembly · Full text

SB 12: Inspection of Public Records; documents and records in the possession of private persons or entities; revise provisions

Enrolled version, the latest LegiScan holds · Last action May 14, 2025 · Passed

The text as LegiScan holds it, read from the PDF the legislature publishes with its margin line numbers, running heads, and page footers removed. Line breaks are joined into paragraphs here; no word is changed.

Underlined words are what the bill adds to current law and struck-through words are what it removes, as the printed bill shows them.

Copy for LLM, View as markdown, and Send to AI use the Markdown version: this text, then the summaries under a heading that names them as ours. View raw is the text alone.

Back to the summary

Senate Bill 12

By: Senators Ginn of the 47th, Robertson of the 29th, Summers of the 13th, Dixon of the 45th, Still of the 48th and others

AS PASSED

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

AN ACT

To amend Article 4 of Chapter 18 of Title 50 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to inspection of public records, so as to revise provisions related to public records in the possession of private persons or entities; to revise definitions; to provide for related matters; to provide an effective date; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF GEORGIA:

SECTION 1.

Article 4 of Chapter 18 of Title 50 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to inspection of public records, is amended in subsection (b) of Code Section 50-18-70, relating to legislative intent and definitions, by adding a new paragraph to read as follows: "(1.1) 'Custodian' or 'lawful custodian' means the agency that has charge, custody, care, and control over a public record or an employee of such agency who is designated as the custodian of such agency's records."

SECTION 2.

Said article is further amended in Code Section 50-18-71, relating to right of access, timing, fees, denial of requests, and impact of electronic records, by revising subsection (a) as follows:

"(a)(1) All public records shall be open for personal inspection and copying, except those which by order of a court of this state or by law are specifically exempted from disclosure. Records shall be maintained by agencies to the extent and in the manner required by Article 5 of this chapter.

(2)(A) All requests to inspect or copy public records under this article shall be made upon a custodian.

(B) Upon receiving a request to inspect or copy public records under this article, a custodian shall comply with the requirements of this Code section, including, but not limited to, the requirement to retrieve public records prepared and maintained or received by a private person or private entity in the performance of a service or function for or on behalf of an agency or transferred to a private person or private entity by an agency for storage or future governmental use; provided, however, that a custodian shall have no obligation to retrieve public records held by another agency or any other public entity. Such private persons or private entities shall be required to produce such public records to a custodian upon request from such custodian so long as such request is made within the period of time as prescribed by the statutory document retention guideline or a period of time as defined in an agreement between the private person or private entity and the agency, whichever comes later."

SECTION 3.

This Act shall become effective upon its approval by the Governor or upon its becoming law without such approval.

SECTION 4.

All laws and parts of laws in conflict with this Act are repealed.