Personal Information exemption

5 ILCS 140/7(1)(c) is more commonly referred to as the personal information exemption. To be able to invoke this exemption an agency must be able to prove that the request represents a “clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy.” What this means is that the record must be “highly personal or objectionable to a reasonable person and in which the subject’s right to privacy outweighs any legitimate public interest in obtaining the information.” This can be hard for an agency to prove, as one appeal to the state’s Public Access Counselor shows. Concerning a video of a traffic stop before a fatal accident occurred involving a pedestrian and a tractor trailer, the deceased’s lawyer appealed the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) for rejecting their FOIA request for the video tape on the grounds of 7(1)(c). The Public Access Counselor rejected IDOT’s use of the exemption due to the deceased not having rights of privacy regarding FOIA, and the contents of the video not being graphic or even showing the accident at all, negating the argument that it would violate members of the deceased’s family’s rights to privacy. Clearly the Counselor confirmed, the right of the public to know the conditions of the traffic stop far outweighed any rights to privacy that existed.

Another example of the rights of the public besting the personal information exemption is a 2010 request for incidents of harassment between October 1993 and 1995 reported to the Champaign, IL Police Department. The PD initially denied the request using 7(1)(c), but the Public Access Counselor determined that there is legitimate public interest and a right to know how police respond to harassment reports and thus ordered that documents be released while also ordering a redaction of the victim’s identity, and the identity of suspects that were not charged.

It is important in an appeal of the personal information exemption to be able to prove that the public’s interest is greater than any damage to an individual that would come of the documents being released. What this means is that one can often get the Public Access Counselor to demand the offending agency to release the documents with personal information such as birth dates redacted, as we see in an appeal of a police report being redacted due to birth dates being included. The Counselor simply ordered the birth date and other sensitive personal information redacted and the rest of the report released. A balance can often be struck between releasing records that are highly pertinent to the public, while also protecting individuals right to personal information.