OPRA can require town and police to provide video of
security camera Gilleran v Bloomfield
A-5640-13T4
The
Open Public Records Act (OPRA) does not include a blanket exemption for video
recordings made from an outdoor security camera. To justify denying an OPRA
request pursuant to the definitional exclusions contained in N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.1
for "security information," "procedures,"
"measures," and "techniques," the government agency must
make a specific showing of why disclosure would jeopardize the security of the
facility or put the safety of persons or property at risk.
Because we
agree with the trial court that the township did not make a sufficiently
specific showing for an exemption, we need not decide whether N.J.S.A.
47:1A-5(g) requires a government agency to review requested recordings and
redact only actual confidential information, as argued by plaintiff and the
ACLU. Such a requirement of review and redaction seems impractical and virtually impossible to
implement when the request is for lengthy surveillance recordings, such as the
fourteen hours of recordings requested here by plaintiff.
