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Opinion Letter No. 94-12
June 28, 1994
Mug Shots Are Public Records
Booking photographs or "mug shots" maintained
by the county police departments are public
government records under the UIPA. In a previous opinion letter,
the OIP recognized that an arrest is
a public, not a private event. Furthermore, based upon a U.S. Supreme
Court decision, and court
decisions in other states, the OIP found that disclosure of an arrested
person’s mug shot would not
constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, since
an individual does not have a
privacy interest in an official record of an arrest.
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