When the office receives your request, it works to process that request. If the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office does not have the data or the data is not public, employees will notify you as soon as possible and give you the reason why any data is not public. State law does not require the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office to create or collect new data in response to a data request.

When the office has the data and it is public

• If you want to look at or inspect the data, employees will arrange a date, time and place for you to do so, at no cost.
• If you want a copy of the data, employees will provide copies as soon as possible. You can pick up your copies or have them sent to you. You must give an email, address or fax number.
• If you want an electronic copy of the data, employees will provide it if the data is in an electronic format, like email or CD-ROM.
• If you do not understand some of the data, like technical terms, abbreviations or acronyms, employees will explain it.
• The Hennepin County Sheriff's Office is not required to provide the data in a specific format or arrangement if it does not already keep the data in that format or arrangement. For example, if the data exists only on paper, the office is not required to create electronic documents.
• The office is not required to answer questions that are not included in the data request.

Requests for summary data

Summary data are records that are specially prepared so they leave out private or confidential information about individuals. Preparing summary data is not done to provide access to private or confidential data. To request summary data, you must make your request in writing using the data request form. If there are charges associated with preparing summary data, state law allows the office to pass those charges on to you. It is always best to ask about summary data charges in your request.

You can look at or inspect the data for free or pay to get copies. State law allows the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office to charge the public for copies of government data.

• For 100 or fewer paper copies, the charge is 25 cents per copy.
• For most other types or amounts of copies, the charge varies. It depends on whether a charge is set by rule or law, or the cost of searching for, retrieving, copying, or transmitting the data.

The office factors employee time, cost of materials and mailing costs in determining a charge. If the office hires an outside party to make copies of items it cannot reproduce, like photos, the county passes that charge on to you.

Copy charges vary and in some cases may be waived. If your request is expected to go above $50, the office may ask for half the payment up front. It is always best to ask about copy charges in your request.