Office of Information Practices

U Memo 15-13
June 30, 2015
Lease File

Requester asked whether the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) properly denied access to records from a DHHL lease file under Part II of the UIPA.

The records at issue in this appeal do not include the DHHL lease itself, which is made public without exception by section 92F-12(a)(5), HRS, and the information in the records goes well beyond the information in the lease itself.  OIP looked to the UIPA’s exceptions for privacy and for frustration of a legitimate government function and concluded that DHHL properly withheld Lessee’s and other addressees’ personal post office box numbers, employees’ non-public direct telephone numbers, information about a proposed but never completed lease transfer, financial information (with the possible exception of the balance and status of a government loan), and a specified piece of information regarding a litigant.  See HRS § 92F-13(1) and (3) (2012).  After that information is redacted, the remainder of the records must be disclosed because they do not fall under any exception to disclosure under the UIPA.