The Complainant alleged that RIPTA violated the APRA when it failed to provide monthly ridership reports in its initial response to his request for "all ridership reports" and when it redacted student and faculty identification numbers on the monthly ridership reports. Based on the undisputed evidence, RIPTA failed to identify, provide, or otherwise exempt the monthly ridership reports within 10 business days of Complainant's request. Accordingly, RIPTA violated the APRA by failing to timely identify all responsive records when initially responding to the request. The undisputed evidence indicates that the identification numbers on the reports are identifiable to specific individually identifiable students and faculty. Therefore, we concluded that there was some privacy interest in these numbers and it was permissible for RIPTA to redact the identification numbers because the privacy interests implicated in these records outweigh any public interest that would be served from disclosure. We directed Complainant to notify RIPTA if he still seeks the reports in a redacted manner and, if so, RITPA is directed to provide the remaining monthly ridership reports to Complainant in a redacted manner at no cost. We did not find evidence of a willful and knowing, or reckless violation. VIOLATION FOUND
