Court orders disclosure of metadata under New York’s Freedom of Information Law

March 8th, 2010 | By Evan Brown

Irwin v. Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency, A.T., — N.Y.S.2d —, 2010 WL 462948 (N.Y.A.D. 4 Dept., Feb. 11, 2010)

Petitioner Irwin noticed that a local government agency used a picture of Irwin in an email “news blast.” He claimed the agency used the photo without his permission, and sought modest compensation for the use of the photo. When the agency refused, Irwin sought information about the agency’s collection of digital images under New York’s Freedom of Information Law (“FOIL”).

The request sought “[a]ll computer records that are associated with published [photographs] in all [of the agency's] publications, including [Web site] and e-mail activities, for the years 2005, 2006, and 2007.” The agency produced some photos that were of reduced quality and “bereft” of metadata.

Irwin filed a court action to compel, among other things, the disclosure of the metadata associated with the requested records. The trial court denied Irwin’s petition, and Irwin sought review with the appellate court. On appeal, the court amended the judgment to order the production of the metadata.

The court emphasized that the decision was limited to its facts. But the case is worth reading because of its concise yet thorough explanation of the various types of metadata and their discoverability.

In this case, the court found that the scope of the petitioner’s request included “system metadata,” which are things such as file names and extensions, sizes, creation dates and latest modification dates. The court noted that FOIL’s scope generally includes electronic records. It then compared system metadata to the notes on a file folder describing attributes of the documents stored in that folder. Drawing on these notions, the court found that the agency should disclose system metadata associated with the requested computer files.

The disclosure of metadata appears, at a superficial level, to present a paradox. Some courts, such as the ones in Kentucky Speedway, LLC v. NASCAR, Inc., 2006 U.S. Dist LEXIS 92028 (E.D. Ky.2006) and Michigan First Credit Union v. CUMIS Insurance Society, 2007 WL 4098213 (E.D. Mich. Nov. 16, 2007) have essentially found a presumption that metadata is not subject to disclosure because of the likelihood of its irrelevance.

But a look at emerging technologies such as those underlying the “semantic web” — an aspect of the World Wide Web in which data are encoded so that the various machines on the network can “understand” the data and thereby undertake the more mundane tasks of finding, sharing and combining information – underscore the potential importance of metadata.

Insightful counsel can break this paradox by remaining mindful of the need for metadata based on the claims and defenses raised in the matter. Hopefully the days of blanket requests for metadata, without a principled basis for such requests are over. Just like any other sort of information that pertains to a case, metadata has no inherent relevancy. Instead, the question of whether it should become a part of the record depends on its meaning. Metadata’s discoverability (or amenability to disclosure under freedom of information laws) should depend not on the fact that it is “metadata,” but on how it can serve to explain the scenario underlying the dispute.

Interested readers should also be aware of related opinions from other states. For example, the Arizona Supreme Court has held in (Lake v. City of Phoenix) that metadata is subject to disclosure under the state’s open records statute. Given the burden to governmental agencies tasked with responding to public requests, the issue of metadata’s discoverability is unlikely to disappear soon.

1 Comment »

---