Bill Text: HI SB1259 | 2013 | Regular Session | Amended

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Bill Title: Freedom of Information; Significant Privacy Interests

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 4-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2013-02-12 - Report adopted; Passed Second Reading, as amended (SD 1) and referred to JDL. [SB1259 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2013-SB1259-Amended.html

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STAND. COM. REP. NO. 209

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 1259

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2013

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committees on Commerce and Consumer Protection and Technology and the Arts, to which was referred S.B. No. 1259 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO FREEDOM OF INFORMATION,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to clarify that a license applicant does not have a significant privacy interest in records that show relevant experience, trade examination results, or adequate bonding and makes this information contained in government records subject to disclosure.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Iron Workers Stabilization Fund.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Records and Identification Division of the Honolulu Police Department.  Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Office of Information Practices.

 

     Your Committees find that this measure clarifies that individuals do not have significant privacy interests in certain records relating to licensing requirements.  Because an individual does not have a significant privacy interest in this licensing information, it is public information.

 

     Your Committees further find that this measure amends the Uniform Information Practices Act (Modified), codified as chapter 92F, Hawaii Revised Statutes, by providing that "notwithstanding any law to the contrary", the disclosure of a record shall not constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy if the public interest in disclosure outweighs the privacy interest.  However, your Committees additionally find that this suggested amendment creates conflicts between the Uniform Information Practices Act and other statutes and an inconsistency within the Uniform Information Practices Act itself and should be removed.

 

     Your Committees also find that amendments are necessary to ensure that the proposed exclusions about licensing information pertain only to individuals who currently hold valid licenses, similar to the existing requirements about licensees in the Uniform Information Practices Act.

 

     Accordingly, your Committees have amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Removing language that would have amended subsection 92F-14(a), Hawaii Revised Statutes;

 

     (2)  Specifying that the licensing information proposed to be excluded from an individual's significant privacy interest applies to licensees only; and

 

     (3)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Commerce and Consumer Protection and Technology and the Arts that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1259, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1259, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Labor.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Commerce and Consumer Protection and Technology and the Arts,

 

____________________________ GLENN WAKAI, Chair		____________________________ ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair