This is an opinion of the Commissioner of Administration issued under Minnesota Statutes, section 13.072 (2025). It is based on the facts and information available to the Commissioner as described below.

Facts and Procedural History:

Brian Paulson (Paulson) asked for an advisory opinion regarding his right to access data maintained by the City of New Prague (City) under Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 13 (Data Practices Act). The City Administrator for New Prague submitted comments in response to the advisory opinion request.

A summary of the facts is as follows:

On January 20, 2026, Paulson submitted a data request to the City for a copy of the audit trail regarding law enforcement staff’s access to automated license plate reader data, which is required by Minnesota Statutes, section 13.824, subdivision 7(c). On February 4, 2026, the City provided Paulson with a PDF copy of the data with redactions, which included redactions of all data in columns titled “License Plate” and “Filters.” The City cited Minnesota Statutes, section 13.824, subdivision 2 and section 13.82 as the basis for these redactions.

Paulson then requested assistance from Data Practices Office staff, who contacted City officials on March 2, 2026, to offer guidance on the requirements of section 13.824. On March 16, 2026, Paulson asked City officials whether additional data may be accessible to him, and the City Administrator informed Paulson the City considered its response to the request complete “to the best of [the City Administrator’s] knowledge.”

Paulson also provided a copy of the redacted audit trail he received as well as guidance documents about the City’s ALPR system’s process to export audit trail data, which states, “Image metadata and audit logs will be in .CSV format.”

Issue:

Discussion:

The Data Practices Act presumes government data are public unless a statute, temporary classification, or federal law classify the data as not public. (Minnesota Statutes, section 13.03, subdivision 1.)

If a government entity denies access to data that are classified as not public, then the entity must inform the requester of the specific legal authority that allows it to withhold the requested data. (Section 13.03, subdivision 3(f).)

Meanwhile, section 13.03, subd. 3(e) states:

The responsible authority of a government entity that maintains public government data in a computer storage medium shall provide to any person making a request under this section a copy of any public data contained in that medium, in electronic form, if the government entity can reasonably make the copy or have a copy made. This does not require a government entity to provide the data in an electronic format or program that is different from the format or program in which the data are maintained by the government entity.

The Commissioner has previously opined that government entities are not obligated to convert data to a different format at the request of a data requester. Rather, entities are required to provide access to data in the format in which those data are maintained. (See, e.g., Advisory Opinions 09-006 and 19-013.) For electronic data, a government entity must make a copy of the data in its native format if it can reasonably do so.

Minnesota Statutes, section 13.824 establishes specific requirements for automated license plate readers (ALPR), which the law defines as “an electronic device mounted on a law enforcement vehicle or positioned in a stationary location that is capable of recording data on, or taking a photograph of, a vehicle or its license plate and comparing the collected data and photographs to existing law enforcement databases for investigative purposes.” (See section 13.824, subdivision 1(b).)

Section 13.824, subdivision 2(a) limits the collection of data by an ALPR to: (1) license plate numbers; (2) date, time and location data on vehicles; and (3) pictures of license plates, vehicles, and areas surrounding the vehicles. Subdivision 2(b) states:

All data collected by an automated license plate reader are private data on individuals or nonpublic data unless the data are public under section 13.82, subdivision 2, 3, or 6, or are active criminal investigative data under section 13.82, subdivision 7.

Additionally, section 13.824, subdivision 7 establishes requirements and limitations regarding access to data collected by an ALPR. Paragraph (b) states that law enforcement personnel’s access to the data collected by an ALPR “must be based on a reasonable suspicion that the data are pertinent to an active criminal investigation and must include a record of the factual basis for the access and any associated case number, complaint, or incident that is the basis for the access.” Meanwhile, paragraph (c) states, in part:

All queries and responses, and all actions in which data are entered, updated, accessed, shared, or disseminated, must be recorded in a data audit trail. Data contained in the audit trail are public, to the extent that the data are not otherwise classified by law.

In its response to the Commissioner, the City wrote:

Mr. Paulson’s requests to the City and now the DPO have also raised issues about license plate number and “filters” data in the audit trail. The license plate number data in the audit trail identifies license plate numbers collected by ALPRs and its data sharing platform. The filters data identifies search criteria input into the ALPR data sharing system by its users. The audit trail is a .CSV format document that includes both license plate numbers and filters data. …

… Mr. Paulson previously argued that both license plate number data and filters data must always be classified as public data. He has referenced Minn. Stat. 13.824, subd. 7(c), which states: “Data contained in the audit trail are public, to the extent that the data are not otherwise classified by law.” Contrary to Mr. Paulson’s arguments, license plate numbers in the audit trail may be collected by an ALPR. Minn. Stat. 13.824, subd. 2 specifically identifies “license plate numbers” collected by ALPRs as private data. It is City officials’ understanding that license plate number data collected by an ALPR and included in the audit trail data therefore is “otherwise classified by law” as not public data. The City has a legal obligation to maintain it accordingly. …

… After a meeting with the DPO on March 2, 2026, City officials concluded that license plate number data collected by an ALPR in the audit trail may also be classified as public data under Minn. Stat. 13.82, subd. 2, 3, or 6 or may be active criminal investigative data under Minn. Stat. 13.82, subd. 7. In order to appropriately classify the data, it is City officials’ understanding that the City must first identify which license plate numbers in the audit trail have been collected by an ALPR. It must then determine whether each license plate number may be classified as public data under another classification. This process would require analysis of the audit trail under the statutory scheme for comprehensive law enforcement data. It is also City officials’ understanding that it must also provide filter data in the audit trail data unless it is otherwise classified by law as not public data.

After a meeting with the DPO, City officials immediately prepared its audit trail data for Mr. Paulson’s inspection accordingly. Due to a miscommunication, Mr. Paulson was not notified that the data was ready for his inspection. The City therefore concedes that it did not appropriately respond to his request by not providing this notification. However, upon receiving the Notice [of the advisory opinion], City officials realized the miscommunication and notified Mr. Paulson on April 6, 2026, that the data was available for his inspection. Mr. Paulson initially declined to inspect the data but has since done so.

… Entities subject to the Minnesota Governmental Data Practices Act routinely provide responsive electronic data in PDF format in order to redact out not public data. Other file formats, including .CSV, do not provide governmental entities with the ability to redact out not public data. Therefore, when redactions are necessary, providing the data in PDF format allows for disclosure of public data intermingled with not public data that would otherwise be infeasible to redact in its native format. Regardless, the data Mr. Paulson has now inspected was provided in its native .CSV format for his convenience. (Emphasis in original.)

As the City acknowledges, its initial approach to how data in the audit trail were classified under section 13.824, subd. 7(c) was incorrect. However, the City’s current understanding of how audit trail data are classified is in line with the Commissioner’s interpretation of subdivision 7(c). Additionally, government entities should provide copies of electronic data in a native format when it can reasonably do so. The Commissioner will address each consideration in turn.

Data Classification

Section 13.824, subd. 7(c) requires law enforcement agencies to create a data audit trail documenting instances when agency staff query or access the database containing data captured by an ALPR. The subdivision designates the audit trail as public data, but the language acknowledges that certain data within the audit trail may be “otherwise classified by law” as not public data.

At issue here are two categories of data in the audit trail described as “filters” and “license plate numbers.” The data in these categories within the audit trail are public data unless a specific statutory provision classifies those data as not public.

The data within the “filter” category of the audit trail show the search criteria terms or phrases that law enforcement staff enter when searching the ALPR database system. The Data Practices Act does not generally classify search criteria terms or phrases as not public data.

However, section 13.824, subd. 7(b) clarifies that, when law enforcement personnel access data contained within an ALPR database, the access must be “based on a reasonable suspicion that the data are pertinent to an active criminal investigation.” (See section 13.824, subdivision 7(b).) Therefore, the data related to each query documented in the audit trail, including data in the filter category, may be related to an active criminal investigation, and the City must review the status of the criminal investigations related to the ALPR database searches to determine the appropriate classification of the data provided in the audit trail.

Under section 13.82, subd. 7, the audit trail data related to a specific ALPR data search by law enforcement personnel are classified as confidential or protected nonpublic while the criminal investigation related to that search remains active. The audit trail data related to the specific search then become public when the criminal investigation changes to inactive due to one of the reasons stated in section 13.82, subd. 7. As a result, the City is permitted to redact data in the “filter” category, along with the other data in the audit trail documenting a specific search, when the data are related to an active criminal investigation.

Meanwhile, section 13.824, subd. 2(b) classifies data “collected by an automated license plate reader” as private. Therefore, any license plate numbers contained within the audit trail that an ALPR device directly collected are classified as private data and may be redacted.

However, license plate numbers appearing in the audit trail that are the result of other creation methods — such as an officer entering the number in the ALPR database’s search functions after collecting the data via other investigative methods — are not classified as private under section 13.824, subd. 2(b). Rather, these license plate numbers are governed under the general law enforcement data classifications described in section 13.82. As a result, the data in the license plate category are public unless the numbers are collected directly by an ALPR device or are classified as not public under section 13.82 while the investigation is active.

Data Format

Paulson also raised the issue of accessing the audit trail data in a native .CSV format after receiving the original response in PDF. The City explained in its response to the Commissioner that it needed to convert the data to a PDF format to redact not public data.

Past advisory opinions have made clear that government entities must provide access to data in a computer storage medium if the entity can reasonably make a copy. Here, it appears the audit trails are exported in a .CSV format, and therefore the City should provide access to the audit trail data in that format when it can reasonably do so.

Although the Commissioner appreciates the update that it has since offered Paulson access to an audit trail containing additional public data in a .CSV format, the City did not respond appropriately to the January 20, 2026, request because its initial response did not provide Palson with all data he was entitled to access.

The Commissioner has a final note regarding the audit trail requirements of section 13.824, subd. 7(c) and its classification. The Data Practices Office has recently received several questions from members of the public and law enforcement agencies about what specific data elements should be recorded in the data audit trail and who should have access to that information. However, the language of section 13.824, subd. 7(c) does not offer clear or specific direction on what data the Legislature expects to be included in an audit trail recording “[a]ll queries and responses, and all actions in which data are entered, updated, accessed, shared, or disseminated.” The audit trail data are classified as public, “to the extent that the data are not otherwise classified by law.” This language has resulted in inconsistent approaches across law enforcement agencies for what data may or may not be included and accessed in the audit trail required under section 13.824, subd. 7(c).

The Commissioner encourages the Legislature to revisit the language of section 13.824, subd. 7(c) to implement more specific requirements for what data law enforcement agencies must include in the publicly available audit trail. Such language can ensure the audit trails are consistent across all Minnesota law enforcement agencies using ALPRs and can offer clearer information to the public about how law enforcement agencies in different jurisdictions are accessing ALPR data.

Opinion:

Based on the facts and information provided, the Commissioner’s opinion on the issue is as follows:

The City of New Prague did not initially respond appropriately to a January 20, 2026, data request for an automated license plate reader data audit trail required by Minnesota Statutes, section 13.824, subdivision 7(c) because it failed to provide the requester with all public data he was entitled to access. The City has since offered access to the requested data.

Signed:

Tamar Gronvall
Commissioner

May 18, 2026