There is an OIP Opinion Letter which talks about the identity of a UIPA requester not being confidential. But it says that if the person does not provide their name the agency can’t disclose it. The form for requesting records notes that a person does not have to give their real name, but what they give needs to be enough for the agency to be able to contact them. The form says that contact information is confidential.
All I gave them for my name was “Nellie”. They have my contact information because it is the name on my e-mail account. Because their e-mailing program reveals the name on the account they were able to get my last name. I did not give them that. They extracted it by virtue of me having an e-mail address.
They have extracted information about others by looking online to find out about them. In fact, the supervisor at the Vital Records Office told the HDOH to lie about discloseability of a record because he had first checked online and saw that the requestor was a “birther”. Just like Janet Napolitano had her Homeland Security Dept doing as a regular procedure. UIPA says that who makes the request and why is none of the agency’s business. This snooping is against the spirit of UIPA, and this changing the answer based on the requestor’s politics is against the letter of the law as well.
The reason this matters to me is because the reason I got into this investigation in the first place even though my husband was not comfortable with it was because I did NOT have to give my full name, and because I expected a government agency to respect the information that I did or did not give them. The request form said I did not have to give my name and my contact information was confidential. When they gave the name on my e-mail account they were giving my contact information.
And I should say also that they did not redact the e-mail address for Leo Donofrio either. I have never contacted him via that e-mail because I knew he wanted his e-mail kept confidential, but the HDOH did not redact that as they are required by law.
The HDOH and OIP HAVE redacted THEIR contact information, when a particular individual has responded to a request. They have redacted the name of the agency worker who responded and their e-mail address. So the government worker can choose to be anonymous; we can not. That’s why you get a response from “hdohinfo” when you send a request to Janice Okubo. She gets to be anonymous.
I’ve mentioned that I have received threats. I doubt anybody would really want to take me on, but my husband is not thrilled about the thought of somebody finding me and trying.
For the HDOH to know that I have received threats, to be reminded that I did NOT give them my last name and they are required to keep my contact information (such as e-mail account name) confidential, and for them to refuse to obey the requirements even after being sent a Cease and Desist letter is beyond the pale.
Yes you did. It's in the header of your e-mail. That means you gave it to them. In fact, it means that your full name was probably the first thing they saw when they got your email.
It's just silly to say that you didn't provide them information that openly appears in the header, just because you didn't *also* put it in the body of the email. The header is where your e-mail address is, for one thing. If you don't want your full name up there in the header, you go into whatever 'Account Settings' are on your email account, and change that.
This happens because your e-mail account is set up explicitly to do this. If you do not want this to happen, you need to change your e-mail settings.
That you were not aware of this is irrelevant. You may as well complain about having sent an anonymous letter on your own personalized stationery.
Actually B, this is a common practice everywhere.
One reason is that people change jobs, or multiple people will work to respond to inquiries. It's usually to keep the address consistent more than to keep the identity secret.
Case in point, where I work parts inquiries go to “Parts@MyCompany”, Service requests go to: “Service@MyCompany”, Job inquiries go to: “HR@MyCompany”, etc.
All I gave them for my name was “Nellie”. They have my contact information because it is the name on my e-mail account. Because their e-mailing program reveals the name on the account they were able to get my last name. I did not give them that. They extracted it by virtue of me having an e-mail address.
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Why would you use your real name for an email address. I have several email addresses and they all have fake names on them.