Source: http://docs.dos.ny.gov/coog/ftext/f16676.htm
Timestamp: 2014-09-01 11:17:36
Document Index: 300880734

Matched Legal Cases: ['§86', '§89', '§89', 'art 1401', '§87', '§1401', '§89']

FOIL-AO-16676
We are in receipt of your request for an advisory opinion concerning application of the Freedom of Information Law to requests for records made to the Hyde Park Central School District. Correspondence between yourself and the District indicates, in sum, that the numerical data you requested, although public, is not available in the format you require. In this regard, we offer the following.
By way of background, the Freedom of Information Law pertains to existing records. Section 89(3) of that statute provides in part that an agency is not required to create a record in response to a request. However, §86(4) of the Freedom of Information Law defines the term "record" expansively to include:
Based upon the language quoted above, if information is maintained in some physical form, it would in our opinion constitute a "record" subject to rights of access conferred by the Law. Further, the definition of "record" includes specific reference to computer tapes and discs, and it was held some fifteen years ago that "[i]nformation is increasingly being stored in computers and access to such data should not be restricted merely because it is not in printed form" [Babigian v. Evans, 427 NYS 2d 688, 691 (1980); aff'd 97 AD 2d 992 (1983); see also, Szikszay v. Buelow, 436 NYS 2d 558 (1981)]. When information is maintained electronically, it has been advised that if the information sought is available under the Freedom of Information Law and may be retrieved by means of existing computer programs, an agency is required to disclose the information. In that kind of situation, the agency in our view would merely be retrieving data that it has the capacity to retrieve. Disclosure may be accomplished either by printing out the data on paper or perhaps by duplicating the data on another storage mechanism, such as a computer tape or disk. On the other hand, if information sought can be retrieved from a computer or other storage medium only by means of new programming or the alteration of existing programs, those steps would, in our opinion, be the equivalent of creating a new record. As stated earlier, since §89(3) does not require an agency to create a record, we do not believe that an agency would be required to reprogram or develop new programs to retrieve information that would otherwise be available [see Guerrier v. Hernandez-Cuebas, 165 AD 2d 218 (1991)].
When denying your request for the data to be arranged in a “detailed numerical listing in columnar fashion assigning dollar values to the actual cost where completed in whole or in part by school by line item”, the District indicated “the data you requested is not available in the specified format.” However, the District further indicated “You are welcome to have it in its existing format.” Accordingly, we advise that you accept the District’s offer to provide you the data in the format in which it is currently maintained.
Perhaps most pertinent is a decision concerning a request for records, data and reports maintained by the New York City Department of Health regarding “childhood blood-level screening levels” [New York Public Interest Research Group v. Cohen and the New York City Department of Health, 729 NYS2d 379 (2001); hereafter “NYPIRG”]. The agency maintained much of the information in its “LeadQuest” database. In NYPIRG, the Court described the facts, in brief, as follows:
“...the request for information in electronic format was denied on the following grounds:
“Instead, the agency agreed to print out the information at a cost of twenty-five cents per page, and redact the relevant confidential information by hand. Since the records consisted of approximately 50,000 pages, this would result in a charge to petitioner of $12,500” (id., 380).
“...several months would be required to prepare a printed paper record with hand redaction of confidential information, while it would take only a few hours to program the computer to compile the same data. He also confirmed that computer redaction is less prone to error than manual redaction” (id., 381).
“The witnesses at the hearing established that DOH would only be performing queries within LeadQuest, utilizing existing programs and software. It is undisputed that providing the requested information in electronic format would save time, money, labor and other resources - maximizing the potential of the computer age. “It makes little sense to implement computer systems that are faster and have massive capacity for storage, yet limit access to and dissemination of the material by emphasizing the physical format of a record. FOIL declares that the public is entitled to maximum access to public records [Fink v. Lefkowitz, 47 NY2d 567, 571 (1979)]. Denying petitioner’s request based on such little inconvenience to the agency would violate this policy” (id., 382).
“To sustain respondents’ positions would mean that any time the computer is programmed to provide less than all the information stored therein, a new record would have been prepared. Here all that is involved is that DOH is being asked to provide less than all of the available information. I find that in providing such limited information DOH is providing data from records ‘possessed or maintained’ by it. There is no reason to differentiate between data redacted by a computer and data redacted manually insofar as whether or not the redacted information is a record ‘possessed or maintained’ by the agency.
“Moreover, rationality is lacking for a policy that denies a FOIL request for data in electronic form when to redact the confidential information would require only a few hours, whereas to perform the redaction manually would take weeks or months (depending on the number of employees engaged), and probably would not be as accurate as computer generated redactions” (id., 381-382).
As we interpret the foregoing, insofar as the District has the ability to extract or generate the data of your interest with reasonable effort, it is obliged to do so to comply with the Freedom of Information Law. With respect to the records access officer’s obligation to assist you in determining the format in which the data currently exists and whether this would be helpful to you, §89(1) of the Freedom of Information Law requires the Committee on Open Government to promulgate regulations concerning the procedural implementation of that statute (21 NYCRR Part 1401). In turn, §87(1) requires the governing body of a public corporation (i.e., a county, city, town, village, school district, etc.) to adopt rules and regulations consistent with those promulgated by the Committee and with the Freedom of Information Law. Further, §1401.2 of the regulations provides in relevant part that:
(2) Assist persons seeking records to identify the records sought, if necessary, and when appropriate, indicate the manner in which the records are filed, retrieved or generated to assist persons in reasonably describing records.”
The records access officer cannot be the same person who determines appeals. If a request is denied, the denial may be appealed in accordance with §89(4)(a), which states in relevant part that: “...any person denied access to a record may within thirty days appeal in writing such denial to the head, chief executive, or governing body, who shall within ten business days of the receipt of such appeal fully explain in writing to the person requesting the record the reasons for further denial, or provide access to the record sought.”
Corresponding regulations promulgated by the Committee indicate as follows:
“(b) Denial of access shall be in writing stating the reason therefor and advising the person denied access of his or her right to appeal to the person or body designated to determine appeals, and that person or body shall be identified by name, title, business address and business telephone number. The records access officer shall not be the appeals officer.”
In our opinion, this means that the person who denies access to the requested records must be different from the person who determines the appeal.
Finally, as you may already know, it is our view that if an agency has the ability to scan records in order to transmit them via email and doing so will not involve any effort additional to an alternative method of responding, it is required to do so. For example, when copy machines are equipped with scanning technology that can create electronic copies of records as easily as paper copies, and the agency would not be required to perform additional task in order to create an electronic record as opposed to a paper copy, we believe that the agency is required to do so. In that instance, transferring a paper record into electronic format would eliminate any need to collect and account for money owed or paid for preparing paper copies, as well as tasks that would otherwise be carried out. In addition, when a paper record is converted into a digital image, it remains available in electronic format for future use.
In sum, when an agency has the technology to scan a record without an effort additional to responding to a request in a different manner, and a request is made to supply the record via email in our opinion, the agency must do so to comply with the Freedom of Information Law.
cc: Wayne L. Kurlander