Virginia Code 3.2-3111: Confidentiality of information
A. The Commission shall hold in confidence the personal and financial information supplied to it, or maintained by it, concerning tobacco farmers, including names, addresses, and payment information. The Commission may require any tobacco farmer or other applicant for payments from the Fund to provide his social security or taxpayer identification number.
Terms Used In Virginia Code 3.2-3111
- Commission: means the Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission created pursuant to § 3. See Virginia Code 3.2-3100
- Department: means the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. See Virginia Code 3.2-100
- Freedom of Information Act: A federal law that mandates that all the records created and kept by federal agencies in the executive branch of government must be open for public inspection and copying. The only exceptions are those records that fall into one of nine exempted categories listed in the statute. Source: OCC
- Fund: means the Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Fund established pursuant to § 3. See Virginia Code 3.2-3100
- Indemnification: In general, a collateral contract or assurance under which one person agrees to secure another person against either anticipated financial losses or potential adverse legal consequences. Source: FDIC
- Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
- Person: includes any individual, corporation, partnership, association, cooperative, limited liability company, trust, joint venture, government, political subdivision, or any other legal or commercial entity and any successor, representative, agent, agency, or instrumentality thereof. See Virginia Code 1-230
- Process: includes subpoenas, the summons and complaint in a civil action, and process in statutory actions. See Virginia Code 1-237
- State: when applied to a part of the United States, includes any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-245
B. Notwithstanding the foregoing, personal and financial information supplied to or maintained by the Commission relating to tobacco farmers may be used, exchanged, and disclosed at the Commission’s discretion as may be necessary or appropriate to make payments under, administer, or enforce this chapter and related state and federal laws, any other state or federal tobacco indemnification or loss assistance program, or a national tobacco community trust fund.
C. Nothing in this section shall prohibit the Commission, in its discretion, from releasing any information that has been transformed into a statistical or aggregate form that does not allow the identification of the person who supplied particular information or the sum of money received by a particular recipient.
D. Personal and financial information supplied by or maintained on persons or entities applying for or receiving distributions from the Fund for economic growth and development, as well as specific information relating to the amount and identity of recipients of such distributions, shall be subject to disclosure in accordance with the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (§ 2.2-3700 et seq.). The provisions of that Act applicable to records or meetings of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership or other state or local economic development entities shall apply mutatis mutandis to the Commission and the Manager selected pursuant to subdivision A 9 of § 3.2-3103.
E. The provisions of this section shall also apply to any department, agency, institution, political subdivision, or employee of the Commonwealth or a political subdivision that receives personal or financial information from the Commission in order to process checks for payments from the Fund or to assist the Commission with the administration and enforcement of this chapter.
2001, c. 757, § 9-389.1; 2001, c. 844, § 3.1-1114.1; 2008, c. 860; 2015, cc. 399, 433.