§ 18.062.Certain Information Relating to Identity Theft

An exclusionary rule that turns entirely on where the document came from.

Subsection (a): a business record is not admissible in a civil action if it was provided to law enforcement personnel in connection with an investigation of an alleged violation of the Penal Code provision on fraudulent use or possession of identifying information.

Subsection (b) is the exception, and it is the whole design: the same record is admissible if the party offering it obtained it from a source other than law enforcement personnel.

So the document is not excluded — the channel is. A bank statement is admissible if the party got it from the bank, and inadmissible if they got it from the police file.

The purpose is to protect the criminal investigation. Businesses cooperate with identity theft investigations by handing over account records, and they do so readily because the material is going to law enforcement.

If those records then surfaced in civil litigation, a business would have reason to hesitate — and the investigations that depend on prompt cooperation would slow down.

It also stops the civil claimant using the investigation as free discovery. A victim with a civil claim must obtain the records through the ordinary process, which the financial records discovery provision routes through the Finance Code.

The rule is confined to identity theft investigations under the named Penal Code section, so it is not a general bar on records that passed through police hands.

Note the parallel with the law enforcement records provision elsewhere in this code, which addresses discovery rather than admissibility.