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NH Court ruling requires disclosure of unlinked electronic inform ation not part of existing document



A recent ruling by the NH Supreme Court (Cassandra Hawkins vs. NH Department
of Health and Human Services) is causing a buzz, locally.  The plaintiff
sought information relative to Medicaid claims that was contained in an
electronic database but which (in its entirety) was not already part of an
existing document.  The Court rules that NH's Right-to-Know law "does not
require HHS to compile data into a format specifically requested by a person
seeking information under the statute.  It does, however, require that
public records received by HHS be maintained in a manner that makes them
available to the public."

I suppose, from my limited technical perspective, this means that we now
have to be able to print out all data fields from an electronic record upon
demand -- except those fields which may be specifically exempted from
Right-to-Know under state law.  (There are none right now. Only certain,
whole records are exempted.)  Some of our programs, like voter registration,
are not set up to print out birth place or birth date.  Guess that's going
to have to change.

Here's the link to the ruling, for those interested:

http://www.state.nh.us/courts/supreme/opinions/0112/hawki220.htm

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

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