In the course of this reporting work, Matt learned about a system Chicago operates called CANVAS. CANVAS is the central repository for all parking ticket data in the city. It’s a giant database, and Matt would very much like to know what’s in it. So he filed a FOIA request for the CANVAS database schema.
The city flatly refused.
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Unfortunately, the Illinois Supreme Court had at their disposal a second dictionary. In the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, a “schema” is defined as “a structured framework or plan: outline”. “This is a difference in name only”, said the court. Argh. Schemas are now file layouts. We lose.
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Databases shouldn’t be a safe harbor for municipalities to conceal information from the public.
But, thanks to the good people of Elgin, and also Crystal Lake (motto: “No, Not The One From Friday the 13th”), the Illinois legislature has an opportunity to fix this. SB0226 would add the following language to the statute:
[Public bodies] shall provide a sufficient description of the structures of all databases under the control of the public body to allow a requester to request the public body to perform specific database queries.
From the article:
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