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Re: electronic copies of public records...a conundrum



Title: electronic copies of public records
The purist will argue that an electronic copy of a record is not a "true and accurate" copy to begin with... 
We will only "certify" paper copies as true copies. We will add a disclaimer to the electronic records, but of course that disclaimer could be tampered with. So the people needing official records must come to our office anyway.
 
Our website committee has been discussing related issues.  We are considering posting certain public records (e.g., minutes and assessing records) on our website as pdf. documents to somewhat limit the issues you've raised about "tampering."  I realize that you are talking about more than website activity, but I think some of the thought processes can be applied to your situation.  Besides, anyone that has e-mail probably can find your website.  Post once and forget about it.  That's much easier than responding to multiple requests for a single document.
 
Step 1 for us has been to discuss what we are going to make available and why.  I'm not an advocate of posting "everything" just because we can.  Those documents that we receive a high volume of requests for will be the first to become available.  (If your department is not going to realize manpower and cost efficiencies by offering records via electronic media, why even go there just now?)
 
Step 2:  Next, what do we charge for and what do we offer for "free"?  Residents raise flags about "privacy" even with public records. We are considering charging to download sensitive documents.  For example, we will post assessing records by address, not name.  If someone needs or wants names and additional details on a property, they would enter a secure site and can purchase the full record. We feel we would be offering public information to the casual browser, but also protecting some level of privacy. In addition, we will have a clearer trail of who is accessing "private" information.  Realtors and other commercial interests who come into our office for a property card will pay $1.00 for a copy of that card.  Our legal department feels that we can justify the same charge for electronic access to that record for the costs of maintaining the site. On the other hand, we receive frequent requests for minutes of public meetings.  There aren't privacy issues here.  We don't "make" money off our copy charges.  So we post these minutes and anyone can access them at any time.
 
Can you do a cost analysis and charge beyond the paper "per copy" rate?  For audio and video tapes, we add to the cost of the tape our hourly personnel charge and our indirect costs.  (5% - 10% of the cost of the tape plus hourly rate).  For example, we charge $9.00 to duplicate an audio tape if the requestor brings in their own blank tape; $10 if we provide the tape.  The tape costs $1; it's the manpower involved that costs us money.
 
Finally, we require payment up front for pulling and copying records.  Over the internet, you will need to establish a secure site or hire a third party to process the charge transaction for you.  These are added costs.  If you can't recover those costs under your laws, then you probably can't justify the added expense of "electronic convenience" to your taxpayers...except in terms of added efficiencies or increased productivity...and that brings us back to Step 1.
 
Hope there's at least one thought you can use here. Good luck!!!

Paul R. Bergeron
City Clerk
229 Main Street
Nashua, NH 03060
Telephone: 603/589-3010
Fax: 603/589-3029
http://www.gonashua.com/

-----Original Message-----
From: Kerssen, Julie [mailto:Julie.Kerssen@METROKC.GOV]
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 12:30 PM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: electronic copies of public records

I work for the county government in Seattle, where we are currently grappling with the question of what to do when a citizen requests an electronic copy of a public record.  We need to create a policy to deal with these requests and are wondering if anyone else has thought about this.  As I see it, there are two main issues:

First, should we send citizens copies of public records via email if they request it?  The main concern we can see with this is security -- if a member of the public has an electronic copy of a document, it would be very easy for them to make changes to it, perhaps maliciously, and then claim it was an original.  We could send read-only copies, but it still wouldn't be too difficult for someone to create an edited document from it.  Of course, people can make forgeries from photocopied documents as well, but sending them electronically just makes it that much easier.  If we determine this is a significant issue, we could conceivably write the policy to state that only paper copies of documents will be given to citizens.  However, we then have to justify this to the public, and since the convenience of having something emailed to you beats coming into the office in person, people may not be too happy about it.

Second, if we do decide to go ahead and email public records, we need to decide if and how much we will charge for the service.  Our fear (perhaps unjustified) about making the service free is that we will be completely flooded with requests for public records.  By law, we are only allowed to charge a "reasonable" fee for copies, and cannot charge for labor (since the public is already paying our salaries).  We charge 15 cents per page for photocopies, but that charge is justified by use of paper and toner, wear and tear on the copier, etc.  With electronic copies, there are no materials to charge for, and it doesn't seem right to charge for depreciation of the computer since it doesn't wear out with use like a copier does.  My supervisor suggested charging for computer time, meaning that while the computer was completing the request, it wouldn't be doing other work.  If we do charge, it seems like we should do a flat per-document fee, since it's no harder to email a 100-page document than a 1-page document.  But again, if we do establish a fee, we need to be able to justify the cost.

SO -- are any other public agencies dealing with this topic?  Do you email documents?  Do you charge for the service?  Are there other issues we haven't considered?  Any thoughts (or established policies) will be greatly appreciated!  Thank you -

Julie Kerssen
King County, WA
http://www.metrokc.gov/recelec/archives/