§41-9-594. Establishment of rules, regulations and policies; disclosure of information.

(a) The commission shall establish its own rules, regulations, and policies for the performance of the responsibilities charged to it in this article. The commission shall ensure that: The information obtained under authority of this article is restricted to the items germane to the implementation of this article; the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center (ACJIC) is administered so as not to accumulate or distribute any information not required by this article; and adequate safeguards are incorporated so that data available through this system is used only by properly authorized persons and agencies.

(b) The commission shall appoint a Privacy and Security Committee from the membership of the commission who are elected officials, consisting of a chair and three members, to study the privacy and security implications of criminal justice information and to formulate policy recommendations for consideration by the commission concerning the collection, storage, dissemination, or usage of criminal justice information.

(c) The commission may adopt policies regarding the collection, storage, and dissemination of arrest and criminal history information that conform to the policies of the National Crime Information Center of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The ACJIC may supply employee criminal records as provided in subsection (a) and may provide for the procedure for obtaining the records including, but not limited to, charging a twenty-five dollar ($25) fee for securing records through the ACJIC system.

(d) Any rule, regulation, or policy of the commission to the contrary notwithstanding, the police department of any college or university in this state which offers medical, nursing, and health care education, or which operates a hospital, including, but not limited to, the University of Alabama in Birmingham and the University of South Alabama, and excluding the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa may request from the ACJIC a criminal background check on any person who applies for employment with the college or university, and may charge a background search fee of twenty-five dollars ($25) from each applicant for each search conducted on the applicant. All fee proceeds from the background check fee shall be deposited in the State Treasury to the credit of the Criminal Justice Information System Automation Fund and shall be expended for any purposes for which the ACJIC is authorized to expend funds appropriated to that department.

(Acts 1975, No. 872, §5; Acts 1994, No. 94-578, p. 1053, §1; Act 2000-801, p. 1906, §1.)