OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — The Washington Supreme Court says that metadata associated with electronic documents — such as the “to” and “from” fields in e-mails — is a public record under state law.
The high court made that pronouncement in a 5-4 ruling Thursday. The case involved a Shoreline resident’s request under the Public Records Act for an e-mail that had been sent to the city’s deputy mayor. The resident received a copy of the e-mail without the metadata.
The majority said such metadata could include information relating to the conduct of government. They said the deputy mayor should not have destroyed a copy of the e-mail and that the city should search the hard drive of her home computer to see if the information can be recovered.
The minority took issue with that, saying that the law defines public records as records held by a government agency, and that it would be impermissible for the city to search the home computer.
