Sunbelt Blog

Arizona Sets Metadata Precedent

A recent Arizona Supreme Court ruling that government agencies must release an electronic document's metadata has made the news in the state and is likely to set a precedent as other states grapple with public records laws. The unanimous late-October ruling overturned an earlier Arizona Court of Appeals ruling saying that metadata is not a public record.

In the October 2009 Opinion, Justice W. Scott Bales wrote, "We today hold that if a public entity maintains a public record in an electronic format, then the electronic version, including any embedded metadata, is subject to disclosure under our public records laws."

Metadata, or "data about data," is hidden information embedded into electronic documents. One of the easiest ways to understand metadata is to open a typical Microsoft Word document. When you open the document, you see the document's text, right? Let's say that the document is a letter. You will see the date as well as the text of the letter on your computer screen. However, dates can easily be changed in a Word processor. How do you know if the date displayed is the date the letter was written? Metadata will tell you. You can check this yourself in Word 2007 by clicking on the Office button, clicking Prepare, and then clicking Properties. (In earlier versions of Word, go to File > Properties).

At first, basic metadata will appear including the author of the document and any user-generated entries such as comments, keywords, and title. Click on Document Properties > Advanced Properties and then click on the Statistics tab to view additional metadata. Now, you will see the document's creation date as well as dates when the document was modified, accessed, and printed.

In fact, the Arizona ruling stems from employment discrimination case where a demoted police officer requested public records, which happened to be his supervisor's notes, from the City of Phoenix, received paper copies of the records, and then suspected that the original notes had been backdated. The metadata of the original document could confirm or deny those suspicions, but the city denied the officer's request, citing an over 50-year-old Arizona Supreme Court ruling.

The case made its way up to the Arizona Supreme Court which finally overturned the Court of Appeals ruling that the City of Phoenix did not need to provide the electronic record's metadata.
Justice Bales wrote, "The metadata in an electronic document is part of the underlying document; it does not stand on its own. When a public officer uses a computer to make a public record, the metadata forms part of the document as much as the words on the page. . ."

The issue of electronic documents and their underlying metadata isn't unique to Arizona. Arizona's opinion that metadata is part of the underlying document certainly gives us something to think about. Your thoughts? Will this ruling influence other public record laws across the United States? Should a document's creation date, modification date, print date, and other hidden data be disclosed along with the words on the page?