DEP database records ordered disclosed
The Commonwealth Court affirmed an order of the Office of Open Records compelling the Department of Environmental Protection to disclose information from one of its databases.
In affirming the order, the Court held that (1) retrieving information from a database is not the same as creating a new record; and (2) disclosing information about third parties in the database did not implicate the Right to Know Law’s personal security exemption because the department specifically told people that the information submitted to it would be public.