Records Access and
GRAMA Essentials

Home        GRAMA Essentials        Section 3        3.6. Segregation of records

3.6. Allowing or denying access based on status of information in a record (63G-2-308)

If a record contains both information that the requester is entitled to and information that the requester is not entitled to, then the governmental entity: 1) shall provide access to the information the requester is entitled to inspect and 2) may deny access to the information that the requester is not entitled to inspect.

Segregation, usually referred to as redaction, is the process of separating out this information. If a record contains both public and restricted information, then the requester has the right to inspect the public information and the governmental entity has the responsibility to segregate the restricted information out of the record and provide access if the public information is intelligible.

If a record contains private information that the requester is entitled to inspect—e.g., if he or she is the subject of the record—but also contains information about other subjects, then the governmental entity has the responsibility to segregate the information about the other subjects from the record.