Chairman Litwin called the meeting to order at 10:39 a.m.

Chairman Litwin read the Open Public Meetings Statement.

Chairman Litwin led all present in the salute to the flag.

Ms. Buckelew called the roll as follows:

Commission Members Present: Chairman Larry Litwin, Grayson Barber, Thomas Cafferty, George Cevasco, Richard DeAngelis, William Kearns, Pamela McCauley ( arrived at 10:45 a.m .), Jack McEntee, and H. Lawrence Wilson.

Commission Members Absent: Edithe Fulton, John Hutchison, Rosemary Karcher-Reavey and Karen Sutcliffe.

Staff Present: Catherine Starghill, Legal Specialist and Lori Buckelew, Division of Local Government Services staff.

Mr. Cafferty moved to table the minutes of the December 19, 2003 meeting with a second by Ms. Barber. The motion was adopted on a call of ayes and nays. Ms. Starghill stated that she would speak to Mr. Paolini (NJ Office of Information Technology) to discuss a statement he made to the Commission during his presentation at the December 19, 2003 meeting for accurate inclusion in that meeting's minutes.

[ Mr. Paolini informed Ms. Starghill that he believes that government agencies erroneously base policies on existing technology. He further stated that this approach results in the policies becoming obsolete when the technology changes. He concluded that the best approach would be to establish the policies and then create the technology to accommodate the policies. ]

Technology Subcommittee Presentation :

Mr. Kearns introduced Bruce Harrison, Acting Director of the Office of GIS of the New Jersey Office of Information Technology.

Mr. Harrison addressed the Commission on the New Jersey Geospatial Data Infrastructure. In his presentation, Mr. Harrison explained the different levels of metadata, the importance of standard policies among government agencies, and the seven layers of enterprise data defined by the federal government. Copies of Mr. Harrison's presentation were made available to the Commission members and other attendees at the meeting.

Mr. DeAngelis asked if someone could compile personal information with any layer of enterprise data. Mr. Harrison explained that a person could compile personal information in that manner. However, he stated that some government agencies were currently addressing the issue by restricting the sharing of personal information data. Mr. Harrison further explained that the sharing of personal information still widely varies across federal, state and local government agencies. For example, Cape May County shares personal information but Hunterdon County does not share personal information. Mr. Harrison also noted that it cost government agencies more money to secure the data than it does to share the data.

Ms. McCauley questioned the value of the data. Mr. Harrison explained that the value is the amount of money a government agency pays to obtain or develop the data and the cost of developing the GIS system.

Mr. Harrison also noted that it is important to balance information security and privacy with information sharing when developing policies.

Public Testimony :

Sandy Elliot, President of the Association of Municipal Assessors of New Jersey addressed the Commission regarding her organization's concerns with the Special Directive subcommittee report. Copies of her comments were distributed to the Commission members and other attendees at the meeting.

Open Discussion of Privacy Study Commission members :

Mr. Cevasco addressed the issued of the Special Directive draft report by stating that he would prefer to exempt categories of records as opposed to exempting the personal information of certain categories of individuals (as recommended in the draft report). Discussion ensued.

Review of the Study Timeline :

Ms. Starghill reviewed the timeline. Ms. Starghill noted that there have been no changes to the timeline since December.

Subcommittee Reports were discussed as follows :

Special Directive : Ms. Barber stated that she would revise the report to incorporate the public comments made at the November public hearings since the transcripts from the hearings are now available.

New Jersey Practices : Ms. Starghill noted that the subcommittee is reviewing the results of the survey.

Public Interest : Ms. Starghill noted that all of the transcripts from the November public hearings are available on the Commission's website.

Technology : Mr. Kearns noted that he would meet with Ms. Starghill to begin to draft the subcommittee's report.

Commercial Use : Mr. Cafferty noted that the subcommittee is drafting a report that would be ready for review in February and presented in March.

Ms. Starghill provided the Commission with a staff update.

Chairman Litwin opened the meeting for public comment.

Public Comment :

Vicky Sandras and Pamela Jones addressed the Commission on credit reporting agencies engaging in consumer profiling using personal information obtained from government records.

Hearing no one further, Ms. Barber moved to adjourn, with a second from Mr. Wilson.

Chairman Litwin adjourned the meeting at 12:20 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Larry Litwin, Chairman