Lake case sets important precedent that metadata is part of a requested document

Todd Carpenter [Managing Director, National Information Standards Organization]: "Last week, the Supreme Court of Arizona issued a ruling overturning a lower court on whether file metadata must be turned over in a public records request. The ruling [PDF file] essentially binds the inherent file metadata within the file itself. In its finding, the court ruled that the plaintiff's request for the administrative metadata records was indistinguishable from the request for the public records themselves.