legislators amended the law<\/a>\u00a0to require governments to provide electronic copies of records if requested in their electronic format.<\/p>\nThe amended law read in part,\u00a0\u201cA custodian shall provide a copy of a public record in electronic format if the public record is available in electronic format and an electronic copy is specifically requested. However, a custodian is only required to provide the electronic record in the file format in which it exists at the time of the request.\u201d<\/p>\n
The effect of the amendment, Ivey-Soto said, was to require records custodians to fulfill increasingly complex requests without equipping them with the basic tools to make that job possible. There is no requirement that agencies keep a list of electronic records or even track requests that have been fulfilled so later, identical ones can be fulfilled efficiently.<\/p>\n
Yet the amendment did not define \u201cfile format\u201d beyond \u201cthe internal structure of an electronic file that defines the way it is stored and used.\u201d Certain file formats, like PDF, are intended to display data, so the numbers in a PDF table are difficult or impossible to extract with a computer and analyze.<\/p>\n
Problems solved in other states<\/h4>\n
While New Mexico was deciding how to deal with electronic public records in 2011, other states had long since solved the problem, often siding with greater transparency and usability.<\/p>\n
Florida, for instance, is widely recognized as having the strongest open records laws among the states, dating back to 1992 when it enshrined its \u201cSunshine Laws\u201d in the state constitution.<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s open meetings law sets fines and criminal penalties for public officials who violate it, and its open records law requires a two-thirds vote of both houses before new public records can be exempted from disclosure.<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s law also says an agency may not contract for a database if that contract would limit the public\u2019s ability to inspect or copy records. The law forbids an agency from using a proprietary program or data format unless it is also able to comply with open records laws, and it declares that any electronic record is presumed to be open.<\/p>\n
Since the 1990s, Colorado has set explicit rules on data formats for open records requests. An agency may not alter a record’s digital format in a way that would make it less accessible to a requester.<\/p>\n
Arizona\u2019s open records law also clarifies records in electronic format are subject to disclosure like any other record. Recent court cases have also held that not only is a document but also its embedded metadata \u2014 internal data that describes a document\u2019s structure and history, such as a Word file\u2019s creation date or the architecture of a database\u2019s tables \u2014 is public record.<\/p>\n
New Mexico\u2019s long silence on basic practices of electronic record-keeping creates opportunities in which individual agencies feel free to choose whether to comply with a data request in the spirit of transparency, or to use the ambiguities in IPRA to frustrate the law\u2019s purpose, stated in the statute as \u201cto ensure \u2026 that all persons are entitled to the greatest possible information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of public officers and employees.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2016, The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/em>\u00a0newspaper requested data from the state Department of Corrections on medications given to state prison inmates, in spreadsheet format \u2014 the format in which the records were kept, as the department acknowledged. Yet the department refused, instead providing what the newspaper described as \u201cnearly illegible\u201d PDF copies.<\/p>\n\u201cThe department\u2019s intent in providing practically unreadable, unsortable PDF files can only be to prevent an honest examination of the public records,\u201d reporter Justin Horwath wrote in a complaint filed to New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas’ office.<\/p>\n
The Corrections Department’s response illustrates a serious weakness of the open records law: It does not distinguish between different kinds of electronic file formats, thus allowing public agencies to provide records that are difficult or impossible to analyze.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe document at issue contained confidential medical information which existed in two electronic forms \u2014 .PDF and Excel,\u201d the ruling from Balderas’ office stated in part. \u201cIn order to preserve the confidentiality of the medical information contained in the Excel format, the department provided a copy of the document in PDF format \u2026 [and thus] did not violate IPRA.\u201d<\/p>\n
That response overlooked the fact that Corrections\u2019 response to\u00a0The New Mexican<\/em>\u00a0newspaper was not a file with confidential information suppressed but a printout of the spreadsheet photocopied with what appeared to be crudely taped pieces of paper blocking one field, then scanned and saved as a PDF.<\/p>\nIPRA anticipates that exempt material in electronic documents may need to be redacted, and states such material \u201cshall be removed along with the corresponding metadata prior to disclosure by utilizing methods or redaction tools that prevent the recovery of exempt information from a redacted electronic document.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet rather than suppress the field within Excel and provide the electronic document as requested, the department apparently chose to print the spreadsheet, tape over thousands of records, scan it and save it as a PDF, and then send that to the newspaper. While the interpretation by Balderas’ office noted that IPRA required redaction in this instance, it ignored the alternative of performing the redaction electronically, which would have provided “the greatest possible information” as IPRA demands \u2014 faster, more efficiently and at less cost to taxpayers.<\/p>\n
Further restrictions on the table<\/h4>\n
Since the 2011 amendment, New Mexico\u2019s legislature has not clarified data issues that impede media, business and private citizens from accessing public data and applying it to computerized problem-solving. For example, the legislature could specify public data be preserved whenever possible in a machine-readable data format and provided to the public in that format.<\/p>\n
Instead, several bills have been advanced in recent years that would further restrict access to information under IPRA.<\/p>\n
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If you want to find out what the City of Rio Rancho pays its public employees, you can visit its website and see a list, updated twice a year, going back to 2011.<\/p>\n