Municipal Resident Email Notification Lists Are Not Subject to FOIL Disclosure

We are pleased to share that the New York Court of Appeals issued a significant victory for local governments this week in Russell v. Town of Mount Pleasant, holding that personal email addresses voluntarily submitted by residents to receive municipal e-notification updates are exempt from disclosure under FOIL.

The case arose when a FOIL request sought to compel the Town of Mount Pleasant to disclose its entire resident e-notification list. The lower court ruled in favor of disclosing the email address list, a result that NYAOT argued would be deeply harmful to the public these notification systems exist to serve. In a decision issued on February 19, 2026, New York’s highest court reversed, correctly finding that the disclosure of email address lists would undermine resident privacy and effective municipal communications.

NYAOT and NYCOM filed a joint amicus brief urging the court to recognize a straightforward principle: residents who share their email addresses with their municipality for the limited purpose of receiving emergency alerts, meeting notices, service updates, and other governmental information have a reasonable expectation of privacy in that information. Forced disclosure would expose residents to spam, targeted phishing, and sophisticated spear-phishing schemes, as criminals could use a town's own notification list to craft convincing fraudulent emails impersonating local government. Beyond the cybersecurity risks, requiring disclosure would chill the public from receiving necessary governmental information, as residents who could not trust that their contact information would be protected would simply opt out of these notification services altogether, rendering these programs far less effective. The court's decision affirms that protecting this information is consistent with FOIL's privacy exemptions and New York State law and essential to preserving the public's trust in and participation in local government communication programs.