Accessing government data

Your rights
• You have the right to inspect public government data at reasonable times and places at no cost.
• You have a right to gain access to public government data without telling the government who you are or why you want access to data.
• You have the right to get copies of public government data upon request. You may be charged for what it costs an agency to provide copies, but the cost should be reasonable.
• You have the right to be informed of the meaning of public data.
• If the data you ask for is classified, you have the right to be informed of that fact and to be told which state statute or federal law prevents access. You may request this notification be in writing.

Government’s responsibility
• Records containing government data must be easily accessible for convenient use.
• Agencies must receive and comply with requests for data in an appropriate and prompt manner.
• Agencies may only charge the actual and reasonable costs of searching out and retrieving the data and providing the copies. If 100 or fewer paper copies are requested, agencies may not charge more than 25 cents for each page copied.
• If copies of government data are requested in electronic form, agencies should, if they can reasonably do so, provide copies in electronic form (discs, tapes, etc.).