Office of Information Practices

To explain the new administrative rules for appeals to the State Office of Information Practices (OIP), which became effective on December 31, 2012, OIP has created a new Guide to Appeals to the Office of Information Practices. This new Appeals Guide summarizes in question and answer format the main points to know in filing an administrative appeal to OIP when requests for public records are denied by an agency or when the Sunshine Law has been allegedly violated by an agency. OIP has also updated its existing guides on the UIPA and Sunshine Law to reference the new Appeals Guide, OIP’s administrative rules, and statutory amendments, and to incorporate the July 2012 and January 2013 amendments into the statutes that are included with the guides. All updated guides, statutes, and rules can be found on the Laws/Rules/Opinions or training pages of OIP’s website at hawaii.gov/oip.

Finally, thank you to the 17 DOH agencies, the DLIR Appeals Board, and DCCA’s RICO, who uploaded their UIPA log totals onto the Master Log at data.hawaii.gov as of January 23. Even if your agency recorded no UIPA requests, the Log totals showing zeroes, as well as the manual input of your total number of unlogged routine requests, should be uploaded to the Master Log, so that your agency can show that it has complied with the UIPA reporting requirement by January 31, 2013. Remember that detailed training on how to upload your agency’s Log totals can be found in the UIPA section of the Laws/Rules/Opinions page or via the training link at hawaii.gov/oip.

For the latest in open government news, please look for these archived copies of What’s New articles that are posted here, or e-mailed upon request. To be added to OIP’s e-mail list, please e-mail [email protected].