[Michlib-l] FOIA of Employee Information

[Paul McCann]

Hi Katelin, 

I would consult with your attorney and have them draft the specific response letter. This is from the Freedom of Information Act Statute: 

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (EXCERPT) 
Act 442 of 1976 

15.243 Exemptions from disclosure; public body as school district, intermediate school district, or public school academy; withholding of information required by law or in possession of executive office. 

Sec. 13. 
(1) A public body may exempt from disclosure as a public record under this act any of the following: 
(a) Information of a personal nature if public disclosure of the information would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of an individual's privacy. 

A number of years ago, we had a similar request for patron information. While the Library Privacy Act took precedence there, the above was also cited by our attorney in the denial letter. 

You should have a FOIA coordinator within the University and I would contact that person/department first. You may be able to hand this off to that office for processing, but I would stay involved to ensure there were no unwarranted invasions of privacy. 

Hope this helps, 
Paul McCann 



From: "Katelin Smith via Michlib-l" <michlib-l at mcls.org> 
To: "michlib-l" <michlib-l at mcls.org> 
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2022 1:56:55 PM 
Subject: [Michlib-l] FOIA of Employee Information 

Hello, everyone, 

Recently, our library received a FOIA from an organization outside our state requesting information on our union-represented employees. 





    * First name; 
    * Middle name; 
    * Last name; 
    * Date of Birth/Birth year; 
    * Gender; 
    * Work email address; 
    * Job Title; 
    * Worksite location; 
    * Worksite address; and, 
    * Hire Date. 



We understand that by law, we are required to give information. Still, some of it is more personal than others, such as middle name and gender, and several staff whose data would be included do not feel comfortable sharing it. Have other libraries experienced this, and if so, what did you do? Our director is reaching out to her contacts but she requested that I reach out as well to cast the widest net possible for information and insight. 

Thanks, 
Katelin 

BQ_BEGIN


BQ_END

__________________________________________________ 
Katelin Smith (she/her/hers, they/them/theirs) 
Adult Services Librarian | Homebound Coordinator 
William P. Faust Public Library of Westland 
6123 Central City Parkway | Westland, Michigan 48185 
734-326-6123 ex. 2824 | www.westlandlibrary.org 


_______________________________________________ 
Michlib-l mailing list 
Michlib-l at mcls.org 
https://mail3.mcls.org/mailman/listinfo/michlib-l 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail3.mcls.org/pipermail/michlib-l/attachments/20220824/51e93b1a/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: sig 19.png
Type: image/png
Size: 69237 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mail3.mcls.org/pipermail/michlib-l/attachments/20220824/51e93b1a/attachment.png>