Agenda - Council - 02/08/2021 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

various forms data could be held — including the concept of storage media — the legislators of the time could not have imagined where technology would be today. For example, the originally -drafted MGDPA made reference to photostatic, microphotographic, or microfilmed records. Minn. Stat. § 13.03, subd. 1. The current law still refers to these same mediums of data, despite few cities maintaining data in this manner. Technology has exploded, and the type of data collected by this new technology has multiplied. In our current reality, the public and government have been frustrated by how best to access government data. In Webster v. Hennepin County, 910 N.W. 2d 420 (Minn. 2018), the County was asked to conduct a computer -aided search of all its email accounts over multiple years for 20 separate search terms related to biometrics and facial recognition. The Minnesota Supreme Court found that the County failed to establish procedures to ensure appropriate and prompt compliance with data requests but did not find that the County failed to keep its records in an arrangement and condition to make them easily accessible for convenient use. The Court also did not address if a term search was a valid data practices request or if a request could be unduly burdensome. The lack of direction from the Court on these issues leaves a void. There are also other advances in technology that are not comprehensively addressed by the MGDPA. While the Legislature has attempted to address technological advancements as they come, it has been in piecemeal ways. Response: The Legislature should update the MGDPA to comprehensively address technological changes since the Act was first enacted. Because the MGDPA is a complicated area of law, the Legislature 120 should make changes based on the recommendations from subject matter experts from all levels of government and interested stakeholders, including recommendations on what constitutes reasonable data practices request and when a data practices request is unduly burdensome. DP-4. Maintaining Government Data in Large Databases Issue: The Minnesota Department of Administration Advisory Opinion 10-016 issued in June 2010 maintains that the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act (MGDPA) requires cities to keep records containing public government data so that they can be easily accessible and convenient to use, regardless of how they are kept. Cities maintain that the application of this advisory opinion to large databases in which records are kept in an electronic format forces cities to risk the daily threat of allegations of noncompliance or leaves local government officials confused regarding how to apply the requirement for access to data in circumstances where information technology is utilized to facilitate the management and organization of records and information which often includes public, private, and nonpublic data within individual data sets. In addition, large databases today contain different forms of data, including video, audio, images, and social media. In responding to data practices requests, responsive data could be stored in multiple data bases. Further, with the advent of cloud -based information systems provided by the private sector, newer databases are not typically designed to be controlled by cities to easily separate public from non- public data.