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February 15, 2001; School District 281 (Robbinsdale)
2/15/2001 10:15:43 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 person who requested this opinion and the response from the government entity with which the person disagrees are presented in summary form. Copies of the complete submissions are on file at the offices of IPA and, except for any data classified as not public, are available for public access. On December 21, 2000, IPA received a letter, dated December 20, 2000, from X. In his/her letter, X requested that the Commissioner issue an advisory opinion regarding X's access to certain data that School District 281, Robbinsdale, maintains. IPA, on behalf of the Commissioner, wrote to Stan Mack, Superintendent of the District, in response to X's request. The purposes of this letter, dated December 29, 2000, were to inform him of X's request and to ask him to provide information or support for the District's position. On January 9, 2001, IPA received a response, dated same, from Ken Kostka, Senior Associate for Human Resources for the District. A summary of the facts is as follows. In a letter dated November 22, 2000, X wrote to Mr. Kostka and asked to inspect all private and public data that the District maintains about him/her. On December 6, 2000, X inspected the data but some were missing. X wrote: Specifically, I was allowed to view my notes from an interview conducted by five district employees, all of whom had given me their names and titles at the time of the interview. Two sets of notes had been signed by the interviewers. Mr. Kostka had redacted the names of these employees and in a letter dated December 8, 2000, cited Mn. Statue [sic] 13.03, subd (e) [sic] and 13.43 as reasons for his actions.... In addition, I requested the identities of the three other interviewers...Mr. Kostka claimed that this would be creating data. Issue:In X's request for an opinion, s/he asked the Commissioner to address the following issue:
Discussion:Pursuant to Minnesota Statutes, section 13.04, subdivision 3, individuals are entitled to gain access to data of which they are the subject. In his comments to the Commissioner, Mr. Kostka wrote that X asked to inspect notes taken by five interview panelists during X's interview for a District job. Mr. Kostka stated, On December 6, 2000, when X was present to inspect this data, the School District notified [him/her] in writing that the School District had redacted personally identifiable information regarding School District employees from the notes pursuant to Minn. Stat. section 13.43. Mr. Kostka argued that the District properly redacted the documents. He asserted that because the interview panelists are District employees, the identities of the authors of the signed notes constitute personally identifiable information about those employees. He added, An individual panelist's impressions of an applicant constitute private personnel data about the interview panelist in part. Data about current and former public employees are termed personnel data and are classified at section 13.43. Public personnel data are listed in subdivision 2; under subdivision 4, all other personnel data are private. Names of public employees are public data. The District's characterization of the data in question, i.e., an individual panelist's impressions of an applicant, is not included in the list of public personnel data enumerated at subdivision 2. Neither X nor the District provided the Commissioner with the interview notes. Therefore, he is not able to determine whether X or the interviewing employee is the subject of the notes. However, the Commissioner does have the following comments. The District provided the contents of each note to X and redacted the name of each interviewer. Thus, the District's redaction is appropriate if, in the case of each note, revealing the identity of the interviewer along with the content of the note would reveal private personnel data about the interviewer. If a note does not contain any data about the interviewer, then there are no private personnel data in the note, and the reviewer's name would be public, and available to X. (See also Advisory Opinion 01-025.) As the Commissioner has stated in previous advisory opinions, when government entities are faced with redacting documents containing data about multiple data subjects, it is important for the entity to review each document on a case-by-case basis, to determine who is the subject of the data. A final note is in order. In addition to asking the District to identify the employees whose names had been redacted, X requested the identities of the three other interviewers (who never wrote their names on the notes). In his comments, Mr. Kostka wrote, The notes in question were unsigned. If the School District were to provide X with the specific identity of the author of the notes, the School District would have been creating data. The School District was not obligated to do so. The Commissioner agrees with Mr. Kostka. Chapter 13 provides that individuals may gain access to government data as those data exist in some physical or electronic form. If the names of the interviewers were not contained in the notes, the District was not obligated to add them. Opinion:Based on the facts and information provided, my opinion on the issue that X raised is as follows:
Signed: David F. Fisher
Dated: February 15, 2001 |
Multiple data subjects
Personnel data
Redaction
Determine data subject case by case
Interviews
Interviews
Multiple data subjects
Data subject determined case-by-case
