For their own legitimate operations and internal efficiencies, federal, state and local agencies often commingle nondisclosable, private personal and corporate information with the disclosable, publicly accessible information in their files. But the agency is still required by the CPRA to provide public access on request, without cost for onsite review, of the disclosable portion of those records. If someone requests a paper copy of the disclosable information, the agency is required to provide it, charging no more than the direct cost of duplication. The expense of performing such redaction of nondisclosable information has always been a problem for providing public access. To ease this problem, many agencies have designed their paper records so that the disclosable portions are easily separable from the confidential portions, at least in the case of records that contain information commonly requested for public review.
Public access is often an afterthought.
So it's not surprising that most agencies gave public access little consideration when designing many of their database systems, much less when creating free-form reports with word processors. So it's often a major challenge to automate the redaction of nondisclosable information - especially with legacy systems. Often it must be removed by hand, potentially at great agency expense and delay. Unfortunately, many of them still want to charge sky-high prices for modern access to their disclosable records in modern electronic form. And apparently, Davis likes the idea.