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<br />~) <br /> <br />Ill\' <br />( '," <br /> <br />COLORADO LEGAL SETIING ANALYSIS <br /> <br />Overview <br /> <br />Traditionally, under state Open Records or federal Freedom of Information laws, access to <br />government infonnation has been granted for the entire universe of information (Le., public <br />records) maintained by public agencies. Such grants are limited by exceptions that protect <br />individual privacy in various fonns. This black and white world of decisions mandates <br />custodians of records to release information for the nominal cost of reproduction and <br />quickly, or not to release information at all. Privacy is protected and governmental <br />accountability is assured by this policy. GIS products and services fall into a gray area <br />between release/don't release laws mandated for treatment of traditional government <br />records. <br /> <br />co <br />.-4 <br />~ <br />.-4 <br /> <br />Under the traditional treatment of government records access, any undue taxpayer subsidy <br />of commercial use of "free" information is balanced by the critical need to assure citizens <br />right to know, the basis for decisions of public agencies. Commercial use of the <br />government maintained "electronic filing cabinets" was not much greater than the <br />exploitation of the pre-electronic storage of hard copy records. The relational database <br />technology currently available greatly enhances the utility of the voluminous information <br />collected and maintained by government agencies and utilities. GIS technology adds yet <br />another tremendous enhancement to the' utility of these information stores and presents a <br />new dimension to the traditional records policy. Vast commercial utility results from the <br />massive expenditures for data conversion and the-potential applications of spatial aftalysis _. <br />that GIS typically requires and permits. Control of public access, multiagency cost <br />sharing, and options for cost recovery become issues for GIS custodians, as the balance <br />between undue commercial subsidies and assurance of accountability changes with this <br />new technology. In these tough financial times, additional consideration is due to the <br />potential for cost recovery made available by the changing rules concerning access to <br />government information. <br /> <br />Many of the potential products and services that ONR would like to provide within the <br />sphere of its own operations would constitute "the creation of new records" which is not <br />required in response to citizen requests under the current Colorado Public Records law <br />(CRS 24-72-203). On the other hand, many requests to the ONR custodians of <br />information would be for information that does exist, which could potentially make the <br />ONR a free service bureau to commercial users of the system. Reliance on the right to not <br />create records to protect against ONR being forced to position itself as an unfinanced, free <br />service bureau, distracting it from its natural resources activities, removes much of the <br />value of the GIS resource to the community, and it does not insulate the Oepanment from <br />servicing most of its sister agencies and the utilities at their request, The goal should be to <br />establish a course of conduct for treating requests for services and information products as <br />proprietary and discretionary. This position should allow the ONR divisions to accomplish <br />their mandated and assumed natural resources roles utilizing GIS or other information <br /> <br />A Study of GIS fa, the Colorado Department of Nalu,al Resources <br />431.7 PlanG'aphics, Inc. ' <br /> <br />Octabe, 9. 1992 <br />1 <br />