A New York State appellate court on Tuesday ruled that a request made by the New York Times Company (“the NYT”) for access to a database of the names and addresses of New York City gun permit holders, under the Freedom of Information Law (Public Officers Law § 84 et seq.) (“FOIL”), violates the state’s statute.

In the case the New York Times Company, et al. v. City of New York Police Department, the First Department of the Appellate Division (“the First Department”), a midlevel state appellate court in Manhattan, reversed the New York County Supreme Court’s 2011 decision ordering the NYPD to provide the NYT an electronic copy of a database containing the names and addresses of New York City residents who have been granted handgun licenses.  The First Department’s decision cited privacy and safety concerns, stating that such issues were legitimate grounds to deny the NYT’s request.

“The fact that Penal Law § 400.00(5) makes the name and address of a handgun license holder ‘a public record’ is not dispositive of whether respondent can assert the privacy and safety exemptions to FOIL disclosure, especially when petitioners seek the names and addresses in electronic form,” the decision reads.  “Disclosing a person’s home address implicates a heightened privacy concern.”

The case stems from several requests for information that reporters at the NYT had filed with the NYPD in 2010.  When the NYPD repeatedly denied these requests, the NYT filed a lawsuit with the New York County Supreme Court, describing in its complaint four different requests for information that the NYPD had denied or delayed; one of those four requests was for the names and addresses of New York City residents who had been granted gun permits.

The lawsuit sought a judicial order that would require the NYPD to provide the NYT with the requested information and that would bar the NYPD from “from continuing its pattern and practice of violating FOIL.”  In 2011, the New York County Supreme Court issued an order and judgment which “grant[ed] the petition . . . seeking an order directing [the NYPD] to provide an electronic copy of a database  . . . of names and addresses of New York City residents who have been granted handgun licenses.”  The NYPD appealed the decision, and on Tuesday the First Department stated that the New York County Supreme Court had erred in issuing the order.

The issue of releasing the addresses of handgun owners is not new.  In December, The Journal News of Westchester County published the names and addresses of thousands of gun-permit holders—a move that drew a number of complaints as well as some threats.  The newspaper defended its publication of the public records but eventually removed the information from its website.

Such issues are unlikely to be put to rest anytime soon, as the line between preserving privacy rights and ensuring that the public has access to information is a murky one.  The New York Times has already made this clear, signaling that it may try to keep the debate alive.

“We are still reviewing the decision and considering our legal next steps,” said New York Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy.