October 18, 1996; City of St. Paul
10/18/1996 10:14:43 AM
This is an opinion of the Commissioner of Administration issued pursuant to section 13.072 of Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 13 - the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act. It is based on the facts and information available to the Commissioner as described below.
Facts and Procedural History:For purposes of simplification, the information presented by the citizen who requested this opinion and the response from the government entity with which the citizen disagrees are presented in summary form. Copies of the complete submissions are on file at the offices of PIPA and, with the exception of any data classified as not public, are available for public access.On August 12, 1996, PIPA received a letter dated August 6, 1996, from N. In N's letter, s/he requested that the Commissioner issue an opinion regarding N's access to certain government data maintained by the St. Paul Police Department, hereinafter St. Paul. (After discussions, both verbal and in writing, were held to clarify the issues N wished to have addressed, one issue, for the purposes of this opinion, was agreed upon.) In response to N's request, PIPA, on behalf of the Commissioner, wrote to William Finney, Chief of the St. Paul Police Department. The purposes of this letter dated August 30, 1996, were to inform Chief Finney of N's request, and to ask him or St. Paul's attorney to provide information or support for St. Paul's position. On September 16, 1996, PIPA received a response dated September 13, 1996, from Paul McCloskey, St. Paul Assistant City Attorney. A summary of the facts surrounding this matter is as follows. During the spring of 1996, N was allegedly assaulted by the private security staff of a Minnesota state agency. N called 911 and two St. Paul Police Officers responded. In a letter dated June 11, 1996, N made a written request to Chief Finney for various types of data related to the above incident. In relevant part, N wrote, I also don't know what the Security people were telling Officer Johnson but he took notes. I need to see the notes that Officer Johnson took and to know what was said to him. In a letter dated August 17, 1996, addressed to the Commissioner, N wrote s/he had requested to see Officer Johnson's notes but that the request had never been addressed. In his response, Mr. McCloskey wrote, In checking with Captain Doug Wills of our Internal Affairs Unit, I am advised that no notes or reports were generated in this matter. The only jotting was Officer Johnson's recording of [N's] full name and date of birth for the purpose of radioing our communications center for a warrant check. That jotting was later discarded. In summary, we have no notes or reports on this incident.
Issue:
In his/her request for an opinion, N asked the Commissioner to address the following issue:
Discussion:
Minnesota Statutes Section 13.02, subdivision 7, defines government data as, ...all data collected, created, received, maintained or disseminated by any state agency, political subdivision, or statewide system regardless of its physical form, storage media or conditions of use.
Section 13.04 (rights of subjects of data), subdivision 3, provides that, upon request to a government entity, an individual has the following rights: to be informed whether s/he is the subject of stored data and how those data are classified; to be provided an opportunity to inspect any such data; and to be provided with copies of any such data. In his response to N's opinion request, Mr. McCloskey stated that the only data generated in this matter was a jotting of N's full name and date of birth. Mr. McCloskey further stated that the jotting was later discarded. He wrote, In summary, we have no notes or reports on this incident. Thus, if the data sought by N do not exist, they are not government data and are not accessible to N, or anyone else. Opinion:Based on the correspondence in this matter, my opinion on the issue raised by N is as follows:
Signed:
Elaine S. Hansen
Dated: October 18, 1996
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Copy costs
Existence of data
Law enforcement data
Response to data requests
Data does not exist
Law enforcement (13.82)
