Need to keep your location confidential in order to stay safe? The Texas Address Confidentiality Program exists to help victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and abuse, human trafficking, and stalking. The person who wants the protection must enroll in the program. It is administered by the Attorney General of Texas.
How it helps
The program assigns a substitute address to use. This can be used on your Texas Driver’s License, voter and school registration, and most court documents. It can be used with the Attorney General office for child support purposes. This means that you can keep your true address and location confidential.
What you must do
Enroll in the program through the website by filling out an application, or visit a domestic violence center, sexual assault center, or check with local law enforcement.
Don’t forget to follow through
Once you are granted a new, confidential address, you will need to change your address on your driver’s license and official records. This will not happen automatically, so make sure you take the time to do this.
Stay consistent, don’t let your guard down!
This is not a witness protection program and is only one part of your overall safety plan.
All of your hard work can amount to nothing if you are not consistent. Guard your information carefully and don’t let your guard down on social media! If you are in a situation that is so serious you need an alternative address, you should not be revealing personal information online. Your posts and photos may contain electronic data that is invisible to you, but reveals your location (this is called geotagging).
If you post pictures, appear in friend’s pictures, are tagged by friends, write online reviews or belong to groups, you are giving away more information about yourself than you should. You can try to set your privacy restrictions, but it doesn’t always work, and may need to be completely refreshed when there is a major update of the social media platform or of your devices. You may not be notified when the settings have changed. It is safest not to participate in the sharing of online information.
There are services that can help you clean up your personal data online and there are books written about how to control your online data.
Stay safe. We can help.
The attorneys at Kalish Law Office are experienced in divorce and family law cases, including those involving domestic violence. We can speak with you to help you understand your options, including understanding protective orders, filing for emergency orders and considerations in making a safety plan.
Check out our home page and scroll down to see if our office is offering any special consultations this month.
Here is the link to sign up for the Texas Address Confidentiality Program.
