WAC 44-14-05004   Customized access.  When locating the requested records or translating them into the requested format cannot be done without specialized programming, RCW 43.105.280 allows agencies to charge some fees for "customized access." The statute provides: "Agencies should not offer customized electronic access services as the primary way of responding to requests or as a primary source of revenue." Most public records requests for electronic records can be fulfilled based on the "reasonably locatable" and "reasonably translatable" standards. Resorting to customized access should not be the norm. An example of where "customized access" would be appropriate is if a state agency's old computer system stored data in a manner in which it was impossible to extract the data into comma-delimited or tab-delimited formats, but rather required a programmer to spend more than a nominal amount of time to write computer code specifically to extract it. Before resorting to customized access, the agency should confer with the requestor to determine if a technical solution exists not requiring the specialized programming.



[Statutory Authority: 2005 c 483 § 4, amending RCW 42.56.570. 07-13-058, § 44-14-05004, filed 6/15/07, effective 7/16/07.]