What Is the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act?

The Minnesota Government Data Practices Act is the state’s open-records law. Enacted in 1974, it starts from a simple default: all data held by a government entity is public unless a state or federal law specifically restricts it. You can inspect records for free, request copies at statutorily capped fees, and sue in district court if an agency wrongfully withholds what you’re entitled to see. Willful violations carry exemplary damages of $1,000 to $15,000 per violation on top of actual damages.

Which Agencies the Law Covers

The act reaches every “government entity” in Minnesota. That includes state departments, boards, commissions, and authorities, the University of Minnesota, and every county, city, school district, and special district, along with any board or authority created by law or local ordinance.¹ If a government office collects, creates, receives, or stores data in any form, the act controls how that data is classified and who may see it, whether it lives in a database, an email inbox, or a filing cabinet.

Private contractors performing government functions are treated as the government entity itself for the data they create or collect under the contract. Every government contract is supposed to say so in writing, but the obligation holds even if that language is accidentally left out. Contractors face the same civil remedies as agencies for violations.² One practical limit: a contractor doesn’t have to provide access to data that’s already available directly from the government agency.

How Government Data Is Classified

Whether you can get a record depends on its classification. Every piece of government data is either “on individuals” (meaning a specific person can be identified) or not, and each category has three tiers.¹

Data on Individuals

Public: anyone can access it. Most employee salary information and basic licensing data sit here.
Private: only the subject of the data and authorized government staff can see it. Medical records and Social Security numbers typically fall here.
Confidential: the most restricted tier. Even the person the data is about cannot access it. Ongoing investigation files are a common example.

Data Not on Individuals

Public: available on request. Budgets and meeting minutes are typical.
Nonpublic: the subject of the data (often a business) can see it; the general public cannot.
Protected nonpublic: restricted from everyone outside the government entity, including the subject. Trade secrets submitted during bidding may receive this classification.

If no statute classifies a particular set of data as restricted but releasing it could harm public safety or someone’s reputation, the agency can ask the Commissioner of Administration for a temporary classification while the issue is sorted out.³

What’s Public in Employee Files

Government employee records draw a disproportionate share of requests, and a surprising amount is public. For current and former employees, volunteers, and independent contractors of any government entity, anyone can access:

Name, employee identification number (which cannot be a Social Security number), actual gross salary, salary range, and terms of employment
Contract fees, gross pension, and the value of employer-paid fringe benefits
Job title, bargaining unit, job description, education and training background, and prior work experience
Dates of first and last employment
Whether complaints or charges have been filed and their current status
The final outcome of any disciplinary action, including the specific reasons and supporting documentation
The full terms of any settlement agreement arising from an employment dispute, with mandatory disclosure of reasons when more than $10,000 in public money is involved
Work location, work phone number, badge number, continuing education, and honors or awards⁴

Everything else in the personnel file is private: dependent information, personal medical details, home contact information, and the reasons behind sick leave usage. Private personnel data can only be released by court order.⁴

How to Request Records

Find the Responsible Authority or Data Practices Compliance Official at the agency that holds the records. Most agencies post that information on their website along with request forms. You can submit your request by email, postal mail, or in person.

Describe the records clearly enough that the official can locate them without guessing. Include date ranges, names of relevant parties or projects, and the specific type of record you want. Vague requests invite delays and often come back with a request for clarification.

If you’re asking for data about yourself, you’ll need to verify your identity. Acceptable proof typically includes a state driver’s license, passport, military ID, Minnesota ID, or Minnesota tribal ID.⁵ Members of the general public requesting non-personal public data don’t need to show ID or explain why they want the records.

How Long the Agency Has to Respond

If you’re asking for data about yourself, the agency must respond within ten business days. For other requests the statute sets no hard deadline; the agency must respond “as soon as reasonably possible.” A short request for a few pages of budget data should come back within days. A sweeping request across thousands of emails will reasonably take longer.⁶

Inspection and Copy Fees

You always have the right to inspect public data at the agency’s office at no charge, and that includes viewing records before deciding whether to buy copies. Agencies cannot charge you just to look, or to separate public data from restricted data.⁶

Copies cost money. For 100 or fewer pages of black-and-white letter- or legal-sized copies, the agency can charge no more than 25 cents per page. For larger requests, the agency may charge actual costs: employee time spent searching and retrieving data, materials like paper or storage media, and mailing or electronic transmission. The time spent separating public from restricted data is on the government, not on you. If the data lives in an electronic format, you can ask for it in that format when the agency can reasonably produce it.

When Federal Law Blocks Access

Minnesota’s presumption of openness doesn’t override federal privacy law. HIPAA protects individually identifiable health information, and a government entity cannot release it in response to a data request if doing so would violate HIPAA, even where the state act would otherwise require disclosure.⁷ FERPA works the same way for student education records; many records held by Minnesota school districts carry dual restrictions, with the state act classifying them as private and federal law independently barring release.

The federal Privacy Act limits what federal agencies can share with state entities regardless of what state law requires. Courts have declined to carve out new exceptions based on state public policy, so a Minnesota data request cannot force a federal agency to hand over records the Privacy Act protects.⁸

If the Agency Says No

When an agency refuses to release data or simply doesn’t respond, you have three escalation paths.

Advisory Opinion From the Commissioner

The cheapest first move is asking the Commissioner of Administration for an advisory opinion. Either you or the agency can request one. The commissioner must either issue the opinion within 50 days or notify you within five business days that no opinion will issue. The opinions aren’t legally binding, but courts must give them deference in later proceedings about the same data, and many disputes resolve at this stage because agencies don’t want to ignore an opinion and then defend themselves in court.⁹

Complaint to the Office of Administrative Hearings

You can also file a formal complaint with the Office of Administrative Hearings. The complaint must be in writing, submitted under oath, and accompanied by a $1,000 filing fee or a bond guaranteeing payment. You have two years from the violation to file, and that period extends if the agency concealed or misrepresented the situation. The agency then has 15 business days to respond, and an administrative law judge conducts a probable cause review within 20 business days. If the same dispute is already pending as an advisory opinion request, the OAH case is dismissed and your filing fee refunded.¹⁰

Lawsuit in District Court

The strongest remedy is a civil lawsuit. Any person harmed by a violation can sue the responsible authority or government entity in district court for actual damages, costs, and reasonable attorney fees. The state has waived sovereign immunity for these claims, so you can sue state agencies directly.¹¹

When the court finds the violation willful, the agency faces exemplary damages of at least $1,000 and up to $15,000 per violation on top of actual damages. The court can also issue an injunction ordering the agency to stop the unlawful practice and impose an additional $1,000 civil penalty. You can file in your home county, the county where the political subdivision is located, or any county if the defendant is a state entity. One guardrail: if the court decides your lawsuit was frivolous and had no factual basis, it can award the government entity its attorney fees against you.¹¹

1
FindLaw. Minnesota Code 13.02 – Definitions
2
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 13.05 – Duties of Responsible Authority
3
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 13.06 – Temporary Classification of Government Data
4
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 13.43 – Personnel Data
5
Minnesota Secretary of State. Data Practices Policy for Data Subjects
6
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 13.03 – Access to Government Data
7
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Preemption of State Law
8
U.S. Department of Justice. Overview of the Privacy Act of 1974 – Disclosures to Third Parties
9
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 13.072 – Opinions by the Commissioner
10
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 13.085 – Civil Remedies, Office of Administrative Hearings
11
Justia Law. Minnesota Code 13.08 – Civil Remedies