Is the schema considered private information or just information not required to be released via FOIA? ie: Can't some nice employee leak this information or is it legally protected?
Once the information is released, can anyone can make FOIA requests using the schema?
Under Illinois law there are just two kinds of data: normal data and data exempt from FOIA. Up to and including the appellate review of Matt's case, schemas were in the formal, normal category. After the State Supreme Court review, they are now per se exempt from FOIA.
It's not legally protected. An employee could leak it. A public body can voluntarily reveal documents that are exempt from FOIA (absent some other Illinois law prohibiting disclosure). A public body can disclose source code, for instance, despite it being explicitly exempt in the statute. "This data is exempt" is an affirmative defense that the public body has to raise.
You can't ask public bodies to do research for you. That's the public policy balance in our FOIA laws: you can get almost anything (and: talk to Matt, you really can get a lot of stuff), but you have to be specific about what you're asking for, and it has to be "at hand" for the staff responding to the request.
Is the schema considered private information or just information not required to be released via FOIA? ie: Can't some nice employee leak this information or is it legally protected?
Once the information is released, can anyone can make FOIA requests using the schema?
Under Illinois law there are just two kinds of data: normal data and data exempt from FOIA. Up to and including the appellate review of Matt's case, schemas were in the formal, normal category. After the State Supreme Court review, they are now per se exempt from FOIA.
It's not legally protected. An employee could leak it. A public body can voluntarily reveal documents that are exempt from FOIA (absent some other Illinois law prohibiting disclosure). A public body can disclose source code, for instance, despite it being explicitly exempt in the statute. "This data is exempt" is an affirmative defense that the public body has to raise.
What if you guess common table names? Wonder if they send back the error message.
Could you ask them to run an introspection query? Something like SELECT * FROM information_schema.tables?
Oh wow! If that is necessary, that is so kafkaesque!
"I want your data"
"What data?"
"What do you have?"
"Ha ha. No. Tell me what you want"
"Your data that is the metadata of your data"
"Well actually..."
...
You can't ask public bodies to do research for you. That's the public policy balance in our FOIA laws: you can get almost anything (and: talk to Matt, you really can get a lot of stuff), but you have to be specific about what you're asking for, and it has to be "at hand" for the staff responding to the request.
Clerks fielding FOIA requests have SQL consoles "at hand"?
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