Judges: Robert A. Butterworth Attorney General
Filed Date: 12/31/1997
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 7/5/2016
Mr. James G. Sisco St. Johns County Attorney Post Office Box 1533 St. Augustine, Florida 32085-1533
Dear Mr. Sisco:
On behalf of the Chairman of the Board of County Commissioners of St. Johns County, you have asked substantially the following question:
Are "computer-generated" building plans and building design calculations marked or designated "trade secret" that were delivered to and filed with the county by private citizens for building permitting purposes exempt from public inspection under the Public Records Law?1
In sum:
Building plans and building design calculations which are labeled "trade secret" and filed with a local building department are not exempt from disclosure under section
Your question relates to "computer-generated" building plans or building design calculations. In a telephone conversation, you indicated that you consider "computer-generated" building plans to be those produced by a computer-assisted design program or existing on computer disks. Your reference is not to the computer software involved in producing any such records but to the finished product that is presented to the local governmental agency for permitting purposes.
Florida's Public Records Law, Chapter
"all documents, papers, letters, maps, books, tapes, photographs, films, sound recordings, data processing software, or other material, regardless of the physical form, characteristics, or means of transmission, made or received pursuant to law or ordinance or in connection with the transaction of official business by any agency.
The Florida Supreme Court has determined that this statutory definition includes "any material prepared in connection with official agency business which is intended to perpetuate, communicate, or formalize knowledge of some type."2
Section
A number of statutes require the submission of building plans or building design calculations to local governments for building permitting purposes.4 No exception or exemption from the Public Records Law is set forth in the statutes for these plans or calculations. As the court observed in Seigle v. Barry,5 "[t]here can be no doubt that information stored on a computer is as much a public record as a written page in a book or a tabulation in a file stored in a filing cabinet."6
Your question is whether these plans or calculations may be made confidential or exempt from Chapter
Chapter
"the whole or any portion or phase of any formula, pattern, device, combination of devices, or compilation of information which is for use, or is used, in the operation of a business and which provides the business an advantage, or an opportunity to obtain an advantage, over those who do not know or use it. `Trade secret' includes any scientific, technical, or commercial information, including any design, process, procedure, list of suppliers, list of customers, business code, or improvement thereof. Irrespective of novelty, invention, patentability, the state of the prior art, and the level of skill in the business, art, or field to which the subject matter pertains, a trade secret is considered to be:
1. Secret;
2. Of value;
3. For use or in use by the business; and
4. Of advantage to the business, or providing an opportunity to obtain an advantage, over those who do not know or use it
when the owner thereof takes measures to prevent it from becoming available to persons other than those selected by the owner to have access thereto for limited purposes."
The theft of such is made a crime by the provisions of section
Section
"[a]ny person who, with intent to deprive or withhold from the owner thereof the control of a trade secret, or with an intent to appropriate a trade secret to his or her own use or to the use of another, steals or embezzles an article representing a trade secret or without authority makes or causes to be made a copy of an article representing a trade secret is guilty of a felony of the third degree. . . ."
This office has stated that the fact that information is designated a trade secret does not independently make such information a trade secret for purposes of section
Section
"Data, programs, or supporting documentation which is a trade secret as defined in s.
(b) Whoever willfully, knowingly, and without authorization discloses or takes data, programs, or supporting documentation which is a trade secret as defined in s.
These statutes provide protection for a limited category of trade secrets that reside or exist internal or external to a computer, computer system, or computer network. In order to qualify for this protection the material must be a "trade secret" and must also be a part of a computer system. Nothing in these statutes reflects a legislative intent to broaden the scope of these limited criminal provisions to provide that records that are otherwise public could be transformed into exempt trade secrets by being manipulated or produced by a computer.11
The Public Records Law should be liberally construed in favor of open government, and exemptions from disclosure are to be narrowly construed so that they are limited to their stated purpose.12
The public policy favoring open records must be given the broadest possible expression.13 In addition, as criminal statutes, sections
By statute this exemption applies only to material "which resides or exists internal or external to a computer, computer system, or computer network. . . ." Therefore, if the exemption were applied as you have suggested, any building plans that exist in hard copy form on paper or otherwise than in some computer manipulated form would not be subject to the exemption. There is no indication that the Legislature sought to protect only building plans and specifications stored on a computer disk while allowing access to such records generated in other formats. Rather, a more reasonable construction is that the Legislature did not consider building plans and specifications filed with a local government to be subject to the trade secret exemption.
In sum, section
Sincerely,
Robert A. Butterworth Attorney General
RAB/tgk
United States v. Benjamin Acardo James , 986 F.2d 441 ( 1993 )
Shevin v. Byron, Harless, Schaffer, Reid & Associates, Inc. , 379 So. 2d 633 ( 1980 )
Seminole County v. Wood , 512 So. 2d 1000 ( 1987 )
Lorei v. Smith , 464 So. 2d 1330 ( 1985 )
City of Miami Beach v. Galbut , 626 So. 2d 192 ( 1993 )
State v. Jackson , 526 So. 2d 58 ( 1988 )
Tribune Co. v. Public Records , 493 So. 2d 480 ( 1986 )
Bludworth v. Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc. , 476 So. 2d 775 ( 1985 )