Williams asks about FOIL requests for deleted texts; Smith-Cruz says no record exists
Williams asks whether the city must respond to FOIL requests for text messages; Smith-Cruz says FOIL only applies to records that exist, and if a text was deleted and no longer exists, the city cannot produce it, prompting Williams to note this is news to many.
Okay, so it's up to each one to determine whether or not they have sent a septic message.
Is that correct?
That is what the policy states, yes.
Okay.
So when Governor Cuomo switched to BlackBerry to try to get away from communication, he didn't have to.
He could have just stuck with Signal or WhatsApp.
I'm grabbing it back.
Thank you for the question.
I didn't know anything about Governor Cuomo's BlackBerry use, but I will say that there is, we provide as a city many modes of communication.
So we have, and the city oversees specific platforms, and we know what those are.
email, our SharePoint suite, Outlook, which is also email, OneDrive, there are various electronic records that we have access to and that we're able to
adequately archive or retain.
And those that don't exist on those platforms are unfortunately unable to
they are not able to be retained, technologically speaking.
So if we get four requests for texts, let's say regular text message, SMS, we don't have to respond in your view to those four requests for text messages?
Thank you for that question.
When you receive a FOIL request, if the record
exists, then one should go ahead and find the record.
So I think that whether or not we have access to those messages, those text messages, may be dependent upon the individual.
If they are no longer here in government, if they're currently here, if the text
exists at all.
So if it's a record that exists, then...
But if it didn't because it was deleted, nothing wrong had happened.
We aren't able to provide FOIL responses to records that do not exist, correct?
Got it.
Okay, this is quite interesting.
I'm going to have probably some follow-up off, like I just want to have, this is very interesting to me.
We would love to talk to you more.
I'd love to talk to you.
I'd also love to talk to communications.
And so, again, I just want to reiterate, I think for New Yorkers and small and ethnic media that have been really trying to get access, they deserve to hear some of the answers to their questions.
So thank you, and thank you, Madam Chair.