Question
Are responses to Public Records Act requests confidential?
Some allegations were made about a person by an employee of a public agency. They were printed in the newspaper.
This person asked for copies of the documentation that the county employee had to support their allegations.
The response to that person’s PRA request was mailed to the community organization at the same time it was mailed to him. In fact, some of the members called him to tell him to check his mail, as they had already read the county’s response to him.
So did he have any right to expect that the county response to his PRA request should have gone directly and only to him only at that point?
Is there anything in the law that would guarantee that privacy, at least until someone else makes a PRA request for that letter?
Answer
An agency’s response to a Public Records Act request itself is a public record because it is a “writing containing information relating to the conduct of the public’s business” within the meaning of California Government Code section 6252. Therefore, responses to Public Records Act requests are not confidential.
That being said, it seems unusual for a county to mail a response to a Public Records Act request to someone other than requestor at the time same it is being mailed to the requestor, unless the community organization referenced in your submission asked the agency to copy it with the response. The language in section 6253(c) of the Public Records Act suggests that the agency should be notifying the “person making the request” of the agency’s determination, but there does not appear to be anything that bars the agency from notifying others of the agency’s determination. It might be worthwhile to inquire why the county mailed its response to the requestor and the community organization simultaneously.
Asked & Answered posts should not be relied on as legal advice, and FAC makes no guarantees about their completeness or accuracy. All posts carry a date of publication that readers should take note of in assessing their usefulness, given that laws and interpretations of them may change over time. Posts predating Jan. 1, 2023, that discuss the California Public Records Act may contain statute numbers no longer in use. Please see this page for a table showing how the California Public Records Act has been renumbered.