Information About You
Following the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, the Office of Ombudsperson for Foster Youth (OOFY) is required to inform you of your rights related to the private information collected about you. This could mean information you give our office when you are reporting a complaint or concern, or information we gather as we look into a concern. This information is classified as private or confidential data.
Private data is government-held information that cannot be accessed by the public but can be accessed by the person it is about. Confidential data is government held information that cannot be accessed by the public or accessed by the person it is about.
You choose what information you provide OOFY but be aware that we may also look at records from other sources. You can choose not share information (for example, if you want to make an anonymous complaint) but you should know that may make it harder for OOFY to take action.
Confidentiality
Information about you may be accessed by OOFY staff. It may also be shared with others. Whenever possible, we ask your permission before sharing information about you. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, we may choose to share information without getting your permission.
It is illegal for you to be punished or for people to change your circumstances in a negative way for communicating with OOFY. We recognize that retaliation like this can still happen. If you feel you or someone else has been retaliated against, please let us know right away.
We may share information in the form of reports. You can see some examples here. The information we share in reports will not include information like your name, or anything that can be connected to you. We may include information like how many people called us, a summary of concerns that we heard, or generally where the concerns we heard came from.
Data Requests
You have the right to look at (inspect) data that we keep about you. You also have the right to get copies of public and private data about you. This does not include confidential data.
To make a request for data about you, please read this document.
Minnesota law says that says that OOFY must keep public data in a way that makes it easy for people to access. You have the right to look at (inspect) all public data that we keep.
To make a request for data that is classified as public, please read this document.
