Source: https://docs.dos.ny.gov/coog/ftext/f16361.htm
Timestamp: 2017-10-19 08:51:47
Document Index: 8728442

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

FOIL-AO-16361
The staff of the Committee on Open Government is authorized to issue advisory opinions. The ensuing advisory opinion is based solely upon the facts presented in your correspondence, unless otherwise indicated.
We are in receipt of your request for an advisory opinion concerning application of the Freedom of Information Law to requests made to the Office of the State Comptroller and the New York City Police Pension Fund. You requested “a copy of a database that lists the name, and whatever other personal information is releasable, for every local or state employee who is currently listed as being in partial or full disability and/or receiving disability payments from the state of New York.” Both the Comptroller and the Pension Fund denied your request. It is our opinion that such information should be made available to you insofar as those agencies have the ability to generate it. In this regard, we offer the following comments.
By way of background, the Freedom of Information Law pertains to agency records and §86(4) of the Law defines the term "record" expansively to include:
Based upon the language quoted above, if information is maintained in some physical form, it would 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 more than twenty 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)].
Questions and issues have arisen in relation to information maintained electronically concerning §89(3) of the Freedom of Information Law, which states in part that an agency is not required to create or prepare a record in response to a request. In this regard, often information stored electronically can be extracted by means of keystrokes or queries entered on a keyboard. While some have contended that those kinds of minimal steps involve programming or reprogramming, and, therefore, creating a new record, so narrow a construction would in many instances tend to defeat the purposes of the Freedom of Information Law, particularly as information is increasingly being stored electronically. If electronic information can be extracted or generated with reasonable effort, we believe that an agency must do so.
Most pertinent in our opinion 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, Supreme Court, New York County, July 16, 2001; hereafter “NYPIRG”). The agency maintained much of the information in its “LeadQuest” database. In that case, the Court described the facts, in brief, as follows:
“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.”
“...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.”
“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.”
“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.”
When requests involve similar considerations, in our opinion, responses to them based on the precedent offered in NYPIRG must involve the disclosure of data stored electronically for which there is no basis for a denial of access. In short, if the Comptroller or the Pension Fund have the ability to generate or extract the data of your interest with reasonable effort, based on NYPIRG, we believe that they are obliged to do so. In our opinion, therefore, the Comptroller’s assertion, that your request “would require extensive reprogramming of our computer system” would not necessarily constitute a reasonable response to your request that is consistent with law.
The Comptroller also asserts that “the Retirement System does not maintain a database that lists every local or state employee who is currently described as being on partial or full disability and/or receiving disability payments from New York State.” While the Comptroller may not maintain a separate database, or a separate list of persons receiving disability payments, based on my telephone conversation with you, any information maintained by the Retirement System with respect to a former employee’s disability status may serve your needs, and in our opinion should be made available to you.
In that regard, we note that §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 state agency 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....
(ii) deny access to the records in whole or in part and explain in writing
(i) make a copy available upon payment or offer to pay established fees,
if any; or
In short, the records access officer must "coordinate" an agency's response to requests. Therefore, he or she has the duty to ascertain how records sought may be extracted or generated and ensure that agency staff give effect to the Freedom of Information Law.
Much of the preceding commentary also applies to the response given by the Pension Fund. To the extent that the Pension Fund maintains a database containing information indicating whether a person is retired from the New York City Police Department, whether or not s/he may have a disability, and what payments are being made to them, such records would be public.
The Pension Fund denied access to any such information on the ground that it “does not keep records according to name, but by Tax Registry Number. Accordingly, there is no such database that would provide the names of all retired members of the NYPD.” In our opinion, this response is not consistent with the provisions of the Freedom of Information Law, which is based upon a presumption of access. Stated differently, all records of an agency are available, except to the extent that records or portions thereof fall within one or more grounds for denial appearing in §87(2)(a) through (i) of the Law.
It is emphasized that the courts have consistently interpreted the Freedom of Information Law in a manner that fosters maximum access. As stated by the Court of Appeals twenty years ago:
Your request clearly involves those public portions of the database maintained by the Pension Fund that indicate a former employee’s disability and retirement status, and any corresponding payments made to them. An attempt to deny access to public portions of the entire database based on the failure to provide an individual registration number is, in our opinion, disingenuous.
Lastly, since reference is not made in either correspondence to the ability to appeal, it is questionable whether the responses by the Comptroller or the Pension Fund are considered by those agencies to constitute denials of access. Nevertheless, the Freedom of Information Law provides direction concerning the time and manner in which agencies must respond to requests. Specifically, §89(3) of the Freedom of Information Law states in part that:
Section 89(4)(b) was also amended, and it states that a failure to determine an appeal within ten business days of the receipt of an appeal constitutes a denial of the appeal. In that circumstance, the appellant has exhausted his or her administrative remedies and may initiate a challenge to a constructive denial of access under Article 78 of the Civil Practice Rules. In our opinion, in addition to contacting the records access officers to discuss, realistically, what can be made available to you, we recommend you appeal the constructive denials of your requests to the designated appeals officer in each agency.
Finally, we note that on August 16, 2006, effective immediately, legislation became effective that broadens the authority of the courts to award attorney’s fees when government agencies fail to comply with the Freedom of Information Law (S. 7011-A, Chapter 492). Under the amendments, when a person initiates a judicial proceeding under the Freedom of Information Law and substantially prevails, a court has the discretionary authority to award costs and reasonable attorney’s fees when the agency had no reasonable basis for denying access to records, or when the agency failed to comply with the time limits for responding to a request.
cc:	Shelly Brown, Records Access Officer, Office of the State Comptroller
Rhonda Cavagnaro, General Counsel, New York City Police Pension Fund