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September 6, 1996; Minnesota Department of Public Safety
9/6/1996 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 state agency who requested this opinion is presented in summary form. Copies of the complete submissions are on file at the offices of PIPA and, with the exception of any data that are not public, are available for public access.On June 24, 1996, PIPA received a letter dated June 13, 1996, from Donald Davis, Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, hereinafter MDPS. In his letter, Commissioner Davis requested that the Commissioner issue an advisory opinion regarding the classification of certain data maintained by MDPS. (Commissioner Davis' request was not processed until PIPA received the fee required, pursuant to Minnesota Statutes Section 13.072, for opinions requested by government entities.) A summary of the facts surrounding this matter is as follows. Pursuant to Minnesota Statutes Section 518.551, subdivision 13, child support obligors who are in arrears on child support and/or maintenance payments may have their driver's licenses suspended. Further, Minnesota Statutes Section 171.12, subdivision 1 (3), provides that the names of individuals who have had their driver's licenses suspended, and the reasons for those suspensions, are generally public data. (See Minnesota Statutes Section 13.03, subdivision 1.) However, generally, data relating to persons paying and receiving child support and/or maintenance are private under Minnesota Statutes Section 13.46. Therefore, the issue raised by MDPS is whether the data maintained by MDPS relating to child support and/or maintenance obligors who have had their licenses suspended are public or private.
It should be noted that after receiving MDPS' request, PIPA wrote to Laura Kadwell, Director of the Child Support Enforcement Division of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, and requested that she submit any comments on the issue raised by MDPS. On August 13, 1996, PIPA received a letter dated August 12, 1996, from Ms. Kadwell. In part, she wrote:
Issue:
In his request for an opinion, Commissioner Davis asked the Commissioner to address the following issue:
Discussion:
To address the issue raised by MDPS, it is necessary to examine various relevant statutory provisions. First is Minnesota Statutes Section 171.12, subdivision 1, which authorizes and requires MDPS to collect and maintain certain data relating to driving records. Subdivision 1 of Section 171.12, in part, provides that MDPS shall maintain suitable indices containing the name of every person whose license has been suspended, revoked, or canceled or who has been disqualified from operating a commercial motor vehicle by the department, and after each name the reasons for the action. Generally speaking, the data just described are public because they are not classified otherwise by state or federal laws, or by a temporary classification. (See Minnesota Statutes Section 13.03, subdivision 1.)
Another relevant provision is Minnesota Statutes Section 518.551, subdivision 13, which provides that a court (upon motion of an obligee) or a public authority responsible for child support enforcement shall order/direct, respectively, the Commissioner of MDPS to suspend the driver's license of a person who is in arrears in court-ordered child support and/or maintenance payments.
Operating in conjunction with Section 518.551, subdivision 13, is Minnesota Statutes Section 171.186 which authorizes the Commissioner of MDPS to suspend the licenses of persons who are in arrears in their child support and/or maintenance payments. In part, Subdivision 1 of Section 171.186 states:
The practical effect of the language in Section 518.551, subdivision 13, and Section 171.186, is that similar data from the court system and from child support enforcement agencies are being provided to MDPS so the Commissioner of MDPS can carry out her/his statutory obligations. The dilemma is that data traveling from child support enforcement agencies to MDPS are private (see Section 13.46, subdivision 2) while similar data on a court order traveling from the court system to MDPS are public. (The Supreme Court Administrator's Office is not aware of any provision in the Court Rules classifying those data otherwise, unless the data involve juveniles.) Similar data (name of licensee and the reason for the suspension) which already exist at MDPS are public. Minnesota Statutes Chapter 13 does provide a method for resolving classification issues when data travel from one government entity to another. Section 13.03, subdivision 4 (c), states, To the extent that government data is disseminated to state agencies...by another state agency...the data disseminated shall have the same classification in the hands of the agency receiving it as it had in the hands of the entity providing it. However, in the situation-at-hand, the traveling data provision does not appear to resolve the data classification issue; rather, it creates additional confusion. Pursuant to Section 13.03, subdivision 4 (c), some of the data-in-question at MDPS would be treated as private and some as public, depending upon the original source of the data.
It is the existence of one additional provision that leads the Commissioner to believe the Legislature intended for the data in question to be treated as public at MDPS. Section 171.12, subdivision 3b, in relevant part, states:
The mere existence of this language suggests very strongly that the Legislature intended for the data collected and maintained by MDPS regarding child support obligors to be public; if the data were private at MDPS, there would be no need for this provision. To buttress this argument, there is language in Section 13.03, subdivision 4 (a), which allows for a change in classification of data under certain circumstances. Section 13.03, subdivision 4 (a), states, The classification of data in the possession of an agency shall change if it is required to do so to comply with either judicial or administrative rules pertaining to the conduct of legal actions or with a specific statute applicable to the data in the possession of the disseminating or receiving agency. Although there is no statutory provision which states specifically that private data traveling from child support enforcement agencies become public upon arriving at MDPS, it seems reasonable to argue, in this situation, that the data from child support enforcement agencies must change classification from private to public in order to comply with the statutory provision that MDPS maintain public records relating to driver's license suspensions. Opinion:Based on the correspondence in this matter, my opinion on the issue raised by Commissioner Davis is as follows:
Signed:
Elaine S. Hansen
Dated: September 6, 1996
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Data sharing
Change in classification 13.03
Child support
