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: A5613B
SPONSOR: Zebrowski PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
The purpose of this bill is to clarify certain provisions of the freedom
of information law.
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--B
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 -- recommitted to the Commit-
tee on Governmental Operations in accordance with Assembly Rule 3,
sec. 2 -- committee discharged, bill amended, ordered reprinted as
amended and recommitted to said committee -- again reported from said
committee with amendments, ordered reprinted as amended and recommit-
ted to said committee
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.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD04958-04-4
A. 5613--B 2
1 (b) An agency shall not deny a request on the basis that the request
2 is voluminous or that locating or reviewing the requested record or
3 records or providing the requested copies is burdensome because the
4 agency lacks sufficient staffing or on any other basis if the agency may
5 engage an outside professional service to provide copying, programming
6 or other services required to provide the copy, the costs of which the
7 agency may recover pursuant to paragraph (c) of subdivision one of
8 section eighty-seven of this article.
9 (c) An agency may require a person requesting lists of names and
10 addresses to provide a written certification that such person will not
11 use such lists of names of natural persons and residential addresses for
12 solicitation or fund-raising purposes and will not sell, give or other-
13 wise make available such lists of names and addresses to any other
14 person for the purpose of allowing that person to use such lists of
15 names and addresses for solicitation or fund-raising purposes.
16 (d) If [an agency determines to grant a request in whole or in part,
17 and if] circumstances prevent an agency from notifying the person
18 requesting the record or records of the agency's determination regarding
19 the rights of access and disclosure to the person requesting the record
20 or records within twenty business days from the date of the acknowledge-
21 ment of the receipt of the request, the agency shall state, in writing,
22 both the reason for the inability to [grant the request] do so within
23 twenty business days and a date certain within a reasonable period,
24 depending on the circumstances, when [the request will be granted in
25 whole or in part] a determination regarding disclosure will be rendered.
26 (e) Upon payment of, or offer to pay, the fee prescribed therefor, the
27 entity shall provide a copy of such record and certify to the correct-
28 ness of such copy if so requested, or as the case may be, shall certify
29 that it does not have possession of such record or that such record
30 cannot be found after diligent search.
31 (f) Nothing in this article shall be construed to require any entity
32 to [prepare] create any record not possessed or maintained by such enti-
33 ty except the records specified in subdivision three of section eighty-
34 seven and subdivision three of section eighty-eight of this article.
35 When an agency has the ability to retrieve or extract a record or data
36 maintained in a computer storage system with reasonable effort, it shall
37 be required to do so. When doing so requires less employee time than
38 engaging in manual retrieval or redactions from non-electronic records,
39 the agency shall be required to retrieve or extract such record or data
40 electronically. [Any programming necessary to retrieve] The retrieval of
41 a record maintained in a computer storage system and [to] the transfer
42 of that record to the medium requested by a person or to a medium that
43 would allow the transferred record to be read or printed shall not be
44 deemed to be the [preparation or] creation of a new record.
45 [(b)] (g) All entities shall, provided such entity has reasonable
46 means available, accept requests for records submitted in the form of
47 electronic mail and shall respond to such requests by electronic mail,
48 using forms, to the extent practicable, consistent with the form or
49 forms developed by the committee on open government pursuant to subdivi-
50 sion one of this section and provided that the written requests do not
51 seek a response in some other form.
52 [(c)] (h) Each state agency, as defined in subdivision five of this
53 section, that maintains a website shall ensure its website provides for
54 the online submission of a request for records pursuant to this article.
55 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
