Provides for accessing records under the freedom of information law including notification procedures and the release of names of natural persons and residential addresses.
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A5613
SPONSOR: Zebrowski TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the public officers law, in relation to accessing
records under the freedom of information law
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
The purpose of this bill is to clarify certain provisions of the
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section one amends Subparagraph iii of paragraph (b) of subdivision 2
and subdivision 3 of section 89 of the public officers' law to make
various technical and clarifying amendments.
Section two provides the effective date.
JUSTIFICATION:
There are two provisions of FOIL that state that an unwarranted invasion
of personal privacy includes the disclosure of a list of names and
addresses if a list would be used for solicitation or fundraising
purposes. The ability to deny access pertains to a list of natural
persons and their residential' addresses since the language includes
personal privacy. The exception should not apply to a list of vendors or
others engaged in a business or professional activities.
Additionally, FOIL does not require an agency to create new records to
respond to a request. The principle is that FOIL pertains to existing
records and does not require that an agency create new records to
respond to a request.
Additionally, there is a need to clarify the existing provisions relat-
ing to the time in which an agency is required to respond to a FOIL
request.
This bill addresses these technical considerations. The changes to FOIL
proposed by this bill were recommended by the Committee on Open Govern-
ment.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
2021-22: A.7544
2019-20: A.119A Passed Assembly
2017: A.8255 (Buchwald) - Passed governmental operations and reported to
Rules / S.6816 (Lanza) - Referred to Rules
2018: A.8255 (Buchwald - Passed the Assembly 133 to 0 / S.6816 (Lanza)
Advanced to Third Reading
2019: A.119 (Buchwald) -Referred to governmental operations
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS:
None.
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
5613
2023-2024 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
March 17, 2023
___________
Introduced by M. of A. ZEBROWSKI, PAULIN -- read once and referred to
the Committee on Governmental Operations
AN ACT to amend the public officers law, in relation to accessing
records under the freedom of information law
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Subparagraph iii of paragraph (b) of subdivision 2 and
2 subdivision 3 of section 89 of the public officers law, subparagraph iii
3 of paragraph (b) of subdivision 2 as amended by section 2 of part GGG of
4 chapter 59 of the laws of 2019, subdivision 3 as amended by chapter 223
5 of the laws of 2008 and paragraph (c) of subdivision 3 as added by chap-
6 ter 47 of the laws of 2018, are amended to read as follows:
7 iii. sale or release of lists of names of natural persons and residen-
8 tial addresses if such lists would be used for solicitation or fund-
9 raising purposes;
10 3. (a) Each entity subject to the provisions of this article, within
11 five business days of the receipt of a written request for a record
12 reasonably described, shall make such record available to the person
13 requesting it, deny such request in writing or furnish a written
14 acknowledgement of the receipt of such request and a statement of the
15 approximate date, which shall be reasonable under the circumstances of
16 the request, when [such request will be granted or denied] a response
17 will be given, including, where appropriate, a statement that access to
18 the record will be determined in accordance with subdivision five of
19 this section.
20 (b) An agency shall not deny a request on the basis that the request
21 is voluminous or that locating, generating or reviewing the requested
22 record or records or providing the requested copies is burdensome
23 because the agency lacks sufficient staffing or on any other basis if
24 the agency may engage an outside professional service to provide copy-
25 ing, programming or other services required to provide the copy, the
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD04958-01-3
A. 5613 2
1 costs of which the agency may recover pursuant to paragraph (c) of
2 subdivision one of section eighty-seven of this article.
3 (c) An agency may require a person requesting lists of names and
4 addresses to provide a written certification that such person will not
5 use such lists of names of natural persons and residential addresses for
6 solicitation or fund-raising purposes and will not sell, give or other-
7 wise make available such lists of names and addresses to any other
8 person for the purpose of allowing that person to use such lists of
9 names and addresses for solicitation or fund-raising purposes.
10 (d) If [an agency determines to grant a request in whole or in part,
11 and if] circumstances prevent an agency from notifying the person
12 requesting the record or records of the agency's determination regarding
13 the rights of access and disclosure to the person requesting the record
14 or records within twenty business days from the date of the acknowledge-
15 ment of the receipt of the request, the agency shall state, in writing,
16 both the reason for the inability to [grant the request] do so within
17 twenty business days and a date certain within a reasonable period,
18 depending on the circumstances, when [the request will be granted in
19 whole or in part] a determination regarding disclosure will be rendered.
20 (e) Upon payment of, or offer to pay, the fee prescribed therefor, the
21 entity shall provide a copy of such record and certify to the correct-
22 ness of such copy if so requested, or as the case may be, shall certify
23 that it does not have possession of such record or that such record
24 cannot be found after diligent search.
25 (f) Nothing in this article shall be construed to require any entity
26 to [prepare] create any record not possessed or maintained by such enti-
27 ty except the records specified in subdivision three of section eighty-
28 seven and subdivision three of section eighty-eight of this article.
29 When an agency has the ability to retrieve or extract a record or data
30 maintained in a computer storage system with reasonable effort, it shall
31 be required to do so. When doing so requires less employee time than
32 engaging in manual retrieval or redactions from non-electronic records,
33 the agency shall be required to retrieve or extract such record or data
34 electronically. [Any programming necessary to retrieve] The retrieval of
35 a record or data maintained in a computer storage system and [to] the
36 transfer of that record to the medium requested by a person or to a
37 medium that would allow the transferred record to be read or printed
38 shall not be deemed to be the [preparation or] creation of a new record.
39 [(b)] (g) All entities shall, provided such entity has reasonable
40 means available, accept requests for records submitted in the form of
41 electronic mail and shall respond to such requests by electronic mail,
42 using forms, to the extent practicable, consistent with the form or
43 forms developed by the committee on open government pursuant to subdivi-
44 sion one of this section and provided that the written requests do not
45 seek a response in some other form.
46 [(c)] (h) Each state agency, as defined in subdivision five of this
47 section, that maintains a website shall ensure its website provides for
48 the online submission of a request for records pursuant to this article.
49 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
