## Facts

- Forest Guardians, an environmental nonprofit, investigated whether the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) encourages floodplain development that harms natural resources and endangered species.
- FEMA administers the NFIP and maintains flood-related mapping information, including data reflecting locations of insured structures.
- Forest Guardians submitted FOIA requests seeking, among other items, names and addresses of NFIP policyholders.
- FEMA denied disclosure of names and addresses under FOIA Exemption 6.
- FEMA produced printed maps showing approximate locations of NFIP-insured structures but refused to disclose electronic GIS mapping files that would allow more precise location identification.
- FEMA asserted that precise electronic location data, even without names, could be combined with other information to identify individual policyholders and their addresses.

## Issues

1. Whether FEMA’s electronic GIS files identifying precise locations of NFIP-insured structures are “similar files” within FOIA Exemption 6.
2. Whether disclosure of those GIS files would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy when balanced against FOIA’s public interest in learning about agency operations.

## Decision

- The Tenth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for FEMA.
- The court held the requested GIS files fell within Exemption 6 as “similar files” because they contained information applying to identifiable individuals (policyholders linked to specific properties).
- The court found policyholders had a more-than-trivial privacy interest in preventing disclosure of the precise locations of their insured properties, given the risk of reidentification.
- The court concluded the incremental public interest in the precise electronic files, beyond the paper maps already produced, was limited and did not outweigh the privacy interest.
- FEMA therefore lawfully withheld the GIS files under FOIA Exemption 6.

## Legal Principles

- FOIA Exemption 6 covers not only personnel and medical records but also other information that applies to particular individuals when disclosure would threaten a real privacy interest.
- A cognizable privacy interest may exist in home addresses and the specific locations of insured properties, including where identification could occur through data linkage.
- Exemption 6 requires balancing privacy interests against FOIA’s public interest, which is limited to information that sheds light on an agency’s performance of its statutory duties.
- When an agency has already disclosed less precise information that substantially serves public oversight, FOIA does not require release of higher-resolution data that materially increases privacy risk.

## Conclusion

The court upheld FEMA’s refusal to release precise NFIP GIS location files because the files implicated meaningful personal privacy interests and offered only modest additional value for understanding FEMA’s administration of the NFIP beyond the approximate paper maps already disclosed.


Forest Guardians v. U.S. Fed. Emergency Mgmt. Agency, 410 F.3d 1214 (10th Cir. 2005)