Personal Email Accounts and the Open Public Records Act

On June 11, 2026, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a significant decision that will impact the public’s ability to access, through an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request, the contents of a board of education member’s or charter school trustee’s personal email account if it is used to conduct official business.  

In Rosetti v. Ramapo-Indian Hills Regional High School Board of Education, Alex Rosetti (Rosetti) submitted an OPRA request to the Ramapo-Indian Hill Regional High School Board of Education (the board) and requested, among other things, “Email logs of all past and current [b]oard members for all email accounts in which they have conducted or discussed [b]oard … matters or business [for a specified period of time]. The email log should contain the sender, recipient, those copied (‘cc’) or blind copied (‘bcc’), the date, time, subject and identify the existence and name of any attachment.” When the board failed to respond to Rosetti’s OPRA request, litigation ensued. 

The trial court initially denied Rosetti’s request for the logs, finding that there was “no showing that the email logs from the personal email accounts of government officials are required to be made, maintained, or kept on file during the course of official business.”  The trial court also explained that requiring the production of personal email logs would place a significant burden on the board, citing the certification from the district’s Director of Technology. 

The Appellate Division reversed and held that email logs from board members’ personal email accounts discussing board business are subject to disclosure. According to the Appellate Division, email logs of board members’ private accounts are subject to OPRA “because the emails discuss [b]oard business and were made by the [b]oard members,” even though “the requested email logs . . . are on [b]oard members’ private servers and not maintained nor controlled by the [b]oard.”  The Appellate Division directed the trial court to “require the [b]oard members to search their personal email accounts.” If the email logs were unavailable or their production was “burdensome,” then “persuasive … certifications” could be produced. 

Following the board’s petition for certification, the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed the Appellate Division’s decision. It held that logs of government-related emails contained in board members’ personal email accounts are government records under OPRA. The New Jersey Supreme Court reasoned that “OPRA’s broad reach … includes communications on personal devices and records contained in personal accounts, so long as those records involve government business” (emphasis added). In this way, it was the nature of the communication/record, and not where the communication/record was maintained, that was dispositive. Therefore, the board members were directed to search their personal email accounts to “yield … [b]oard-related” emails” so that “logs of government-related emails” could then be created. Specifically, the board members were instructed to search their inboxes, their trash, and any other “relevant folders” for messages to/from any other board member. After completing searches of their private email accounts and producing a log(s) of government-related emails, the board members were directed to submit a certification so that “a trial or appellate court can assess whether proper searches were completed to capture all relevant [b]oard-related emails.” 

Notwithstanding the New Jersey Supreme Court’s holding, it clarified that “logs of entire private email accounts” are not government records merely because government-related emails might be present in those accounts. By way of explanation, if only 10 of 1,000 emails in a personal email account were government-related, a log of only those 10 government-related emails would be a government record.  

In its concluding remarks, the New Jersey Supreme Court reiterated that “emails related to government business, whether stored on government or private servers, are within OPRA’s reach, so using a private email account will not shield those government records from production under OPRA.”  Moreover, the issues here could have been avoided “if board members did not use their private email accounts to conduct [b]oard business and instead used only their government-issued email accounts, as intended.”  In this way, the New Jersey Supreme Court admonished, “Government agencies should strongly advise their employees, elected officials, and others engaged in government-related business to refrain from using their personal email accounts when conducting government-related business” (emphasis added). 

Based on the New Jersey Supreme Court’s clear and unequivocal message, board of education members and charter school trustees who forward email messages from their “official” email account to their personal email accounts for response (or, arguably, for record keeping); who communicate with their board of education or charter school colleagues on their personal email accounts; or who communicate with anyone about board of education or charter school business on their personal email accounts will, should an OPRA request be filed, be required to search their personal email accounts and to produce logs of all such communications (and, possibly, the emails themselves). When conducting board of education or charter school business, board of education members and charter school trustees should always, and exclusively, use their official email accounts.  

For further information about these matters, please contact the NJSBA Legal Department at (609) 278-5279, or your board attorney for specific legal advice.