January 31, 2000; Anoka County
1/31/2000 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 government entity that requested this opinion is presented in summary form. Copies of the complete submission are on file at the offices of IPA and, except for any data that are not public, are available for public access. On December 14, 1999, the Commissioner received a letter dated November 29, 1999, from Maureen Devine, the designated responsible authority for Anoka County. In her letter, Ms. Devine asked the Commissioner to issue an opinion regarding the classification of certain data that the County maintains. A summary of the facts as presented by Ms. Devine is as follows. She wrote: We have received a request to disclose data which details the phone numbers called by an employee of the County from his/her work phone....This data is collected because the person is an employee of the County. Ms. Devine added that the County retains phone logs containing the telephone numbers its employees call. She further stated, The classification of long distance telephone records is not within the scope of this request as those types of records are classified by statute. Issue:In her request for an opinion, Ms. Devine asked the Commissioner to address the following issue:
Discussion:Pursuant to Minnesota Statutes, section 13.03, subdivision 1, government data are presumed public unless otherwise classified by statute, federal law, or temporary classification (see section 13.06.) The treatment of personnel data (section 13.43), however, runs contrary to the general presumption. Subdivision 2 of section 13.43 sets forth the types of personnel data that are public and subdivision 4 classifies most other personnel data as private. Personnel data are defined as data on individuals collected because the individual is...an employee of...a state agency, statewide system or political subdivision... In the case of this opinion, the data in question are the telephone numbers that a particular Anoka County employee dials from his/her work telephone. The County states and the Commissioner agrees that the County collected these data because the individual making the calls is an Anoka County employee. Therefore, the data are personnel data and are classified by section 13.43. The data in question here are not subject to the provisions of Minnesota Statutes section 10.46, which classifies long distance telephone bills as public, because these are data about local phone calls. As discussed above, subdivision 2 of section 13.43 sets forth the various types of personnel data that are public. The data in question, i.e., telephone numbers that an employee calls, are not included in the list of public personnel data. Therefore, they are private and not available to members of the public. Opinion:Based on the facts and information provided, my opinion on the issue raised by Ms. Devine is as follows:
Signed:
David F. Fisher
Dated: January 31, 2000 |
Personnel data
Phone records
Telephone records/bills
