The Safe at Home Address Confidentiality Program is a statewide address confidentiality program administered by the Office of the Tennessee Secretary of State. It is open to all victims of domestic abuse, stalking, human trafficking, rape, sexual battery, or any other sexual offense who satisfy eligibility and application requirements at no cost. Once a participant has been approved, they are provided with a ‘substitute’ address that can be used by them and their children as their official mailing address for all state and local government purposes, including public school or public benefits enrollment, subject only to a few limited exceptions.

Program participants may be required to provide their residential street address to a public utility service provider for the purpose of obtaining utility services.  However, participants can request that their residential address be treated as confidential by presenting the public service utility with a certificate of program participation.

After doing so, the public utility service provider must treat the residential address and all other identifying information as confidential in accordance with the Tennessee Public Records Act, compiled at Title 10, Chapter 7, Part 5.

The program does NOT:

• Help participants change their identities or relocate.
• Remove or delete existing public records.
• Offer legal advice.
• Relieve participants of their legal or financial responsibilities.

Under the Tennessee Public Records Act, T.C.A. § 10-7-501 et. seq., all state or local government records are considered public and are available for public inspection and copying, unless specifically protected by other law. This means that any member of the public can request that a state or local government official allow them to inspect and/or take a copy of certain records, which may contain an another individual’s name, address, or phone number. This means that an abuser may be able to track or discover the residential address of a victim through public records. The primary goal of the Safe at Home Address Confidentiality Program is to prevent this from happening and provide victims of domestic violence and other crimes with a sense of security in their own homes and freedom from intimidation or further abuse.