(a) The secretary of state or the secretary of state’s designated representative, the state librarian and archivist, and the comptroller of the treasury or the comptroller’s designated representative for purposes of audit, shall be accorded access to and may examine and receive any public records or writings, whether or not they are subject to public inspection. They shall maintain inviolate any privileged or confidential information so acquired and any record or writing so defined by law.
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Terms Used In Tennessee Code 10-7-508

  • Record: means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is stored in an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in a perceivable form. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
  • Representative: when applied to those who represent a decedent, includes executors and administrators, unless the context implies heirs and distributees. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
  • State: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the several territories of the United States. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
(b) The state librarian and archivist or an archivist designated by the state librarian and archivist and the secretary of state or a records analyst designated by the secretary of state shall be accorded access to and may examine any confidential public records for the purpose of determining, in consultation with the agency head or a representative of the agency which has title to the records, whether such records are records of archival value or whether such records are properly filed or designated as confidential. If the state librarian and archivist or such representative, the secretary of state or such representative and the agency head or such representative should determine that certain administrative or otherwise open public records have been inappropriately filed and designated as confidential public records, then such records shall be removed from the designation of confidential and filed within the appropriate level of access designation. Such access to appraise the archival value of such confidential records shall be provided for in the scheduling of retention periods through appropriate records disposition authorizations which are reviewed and approved by the public records commission.
(c) Records determined to be of archival value shall be retained as provided in rules and regulations for records management of records of archival value of the public records commission, and those confidential records determined not to be of archival value shall be disposed of by authorized means and in accordance with approved records disposition authorizations.
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