Most people treat the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act as a records-request statute — you write a letter, the agency sends paper. That is the smallest of the rights chapter 13 gives you, and it is the last one in the sequence.
The rights that matter attach when the government collects the data, not when you ask for it. Before a Minnesota government entity may ask you for private or confidential information about yourself, it must tell you what the information will be used for and who else is entitled to it. That statement — the Tennessen warning — is not a formality. Minn. Stat. § 13.05, subd. 4, makes it a binding limit on every later use of the data:
Private or confidential data on an individual shall not be collected, stored, used, or disseminated by government entities for any purposes other than those stated to the individual at the time of collection in accordance with section 13.04, except as provided in this subdivision.
An agency that wants a new use has to come back and ask. And here is the part almost nobody knows: under the commissioner’s rule implementing that subdivision, if the agency mails you two requests for consent and you never respond, your silence counts as a yes. Minn. R. 1205.1400, subp. 4(C):
If the responsible authority makes reasonable efforts to obtain the informed consent of a data subject and if those efforts are not acknowledged in any way, the responsible authority shall interpret the silence of the data subject as the giving of an implied consent to the new or different purpose or use of the data.
“Reasonable efforts” there means two mailed requests to your last known address and a wait of “not less than 60 days for a response to the second request.” Subp. 4(C)(1)–(2). Two envelopes and two months of inattention, and the purpose limit you were promised at collection is gone.
Chapter 13 as a pre-suit investigative tool is taken up in Chapter 13 is the discovery you get before you have a case, and its place among Minnesota’s privacy statutes in Minnesota’s three privacy regimes. What follows is the individual’s machinery.
What exactly is a Tennessen warning, and when is it required?
It is a four-part disclosure owed to you whenever a government entity asks you personally to supply private or confidential data about yourself. Minn. Stat. § 13.04, subd. 2, requires that the individual “be informed of: (a) the purpose and intended use of the requested data within the collecting government entity; (b) whether the individual may refuse or is legally required to supply the requested data; (c) any known consequence arising from supplying or refusing to supply private or confidential data; and (d) the identity of other persons or entities authorized by state or federal law to receive the data.”
Read clause (d) again. The warning must name the downstream recipients that law authorizes — not merely say the data “may be shared.” A warning that lists no recipients is a warning that authorizes no dissemination.
The subdivision carries one express exception: it “shall not apply when an individual is asked to supply investigative data, pursuant to section 13.82, subdivision 7, to a law enforcement officer.” A police interview is outside it. A benefits application, a licensing form, a school enrollment packet, a public-employer HR form are inside it.
Can an agency change its mind about how it uses the data?
Yes, in five ways, and only five. Each paragraph of § 13.05, subd. 4, is a place where a use you never agreed to can become lawful. Pre-August 1, 1975 data keeps its original purposes plus any the commissioner approves “as necessary to public health, safety, or welfare,” ¶ (a). Data may go to anyone “specifically authorized access to that data by state, local, or federal law enacted or promulgated after the collection of the data,” ¶ (b) — a statute passed next year reaches data collected today. The responsible authority may ask the commissioner to approve “a new or different use or dissemination” as “necessary to carry out a function assigned by law,” ¶ (c). And private data may go anywhere “if the individual subject or subjects of the data have given their informed consent,” ¶ (d). Finally, private or confidential data on an individual may “be discussed at a meeting open to the public to the extent provided in section 13D.05,” ¶ (e).
The informed-consent route runs through Minn. R. 1205.1400, which has real protections in it: no coercion, and an obligation to explain the necessity or consequences of the new use, subp. 4(A); written consent whose text identifies the consequences before you sign, subp. 4(B); and partial consent, with only the elements you expressly approved entering the new use, subp. 4(D). But subp. 4(C) is the default, and the default runs against the person who does not answer mail. Consent to release data to an insurer has a separate seven-part checklist at § 13.05, subd. 4a.
How do you get the file the government keeps on you, and how fast?
Send a data-subject request under § 13.04, subd. 3, and the clock is ten days excluding weekends and legal holidays. The statute is specific:
The responsible authority or designee shall comply immediately, if possible, with any request made pursuant to this subdivision, or within ten days of the date of the request, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays, if immediate compliance is not possible.
What that request gets you, in order: confirmation “whether the individual is the subject of stored data on individuals, and whether it is classified as public, private or confidential”; then, on further request, to be “shown the data without any charge and, if desired, [to] be informed of the content and meaning of that data”; then copies at “the actual costs of making and certifying the copies.” § 13.04, subd. 3.
Count the holidays carefully. “Legal holiday” tracks § 645.44, subd. 5, which is not uniform across entities: “[o]ther branches of state government and political subdivisions shall have the option of determining whether Indigenous Peoples Day and the Friday after Thanksgiving shall be holidays.”
The six-month rule cuts against repeat requests: once you have been shown private data and informed of its meaning, “the data need not be disclosed to that individual for six months thereafter unless a dispute or action pursuant to this section is pending or additional data on the individual has been collected or created.” Filing the dispute keeps the door open.
Ask for the entity’s written policy first. Section 13.025, subd. 3, requires every responsible authority to prepare, and update annually, “a written policy of the rights of data subjects under section 13.04 and the specific procedures used by the government entity for access by the data subject to public or private data on individuals.” It names the responsible authority and commits the entity to a procedure.
What can you not get about yourself?
Confidential data. Section 13.02, subd. 3, defines “confidential data on individuals” as data “made not public by statute or federal law applicable to the data and are inaccessible to the individual subject of those data.” Compare private data, subd. 12: not public, but “accessible to the individual subject of those data.”
That is why the first sentence of § 13.04, subd. 3, is drafted the way it is. You are entitled to be told whether you are the subject of stored data and how it is classified even when you are not entitled to see it. And if access is refused, § 13.03, subd. 3(f), obliges the entity to cite the specific statutory section, temporary classification, or federal provision behind the denial and to certify it in writing on request — treated at length in the pre-suit discovery piece, alongside § 13.82 and, separately, body-camera data under § 13.825.
For families: “individual” under § 13.02, subd. 8, includes a parent or guardian of a minor — except that the responsible authority “shall withhold data from parents or guardians … upon request by the minor if the responsible authority determines that withholding the data would be in the best interest of the minor.”
How do you correct government data that is wrong?
You contest it in writing, and the agency has 30 days to pick one of two answers. Section 13.04, subd. 4, is a complete administrative procedure, separate from the access right.
Paragraph (a) lets the data subject “contest the accuracy or completeness of public or private data about themselves.” Paragraph (b) requires written notice to the responsible authority “describing the nature of the disagreement.” Paragraph (c) then gives the authority 30 days to either (1) “correct the data found to be inaccurate or incomplete and attempt to notify past recipients of inaccurate or incomplete data, including recipients named by the individual,” or (2) notify you that it has determined the data to be correct — in which case it must also inform you of the right to appeal.
So name the past recipients in your letter. And if the agency refuses, the data does not simply stand: “Data in dispute shall be disclosed only if the individual’s statement of disagreement is included with the disclosed data.”
The appeal is a contested case. Under paragraph (d), you appeal to the commissioner of administration “within 60 days of the responsible authority’s notice of the right to appeal,” and the appeal runs under the Administrative Procedure Act’s contested-case provisions. Before issuing the chapter 14 order and notice of hearing, the commissioner “shall … try to resolve the dispute through education, conference, conciliation, or persuasion,” and may refer the matter to mediation. Paragraph (e) permits dismissal without that effort where the appeal is untimely, where it concerns data already “presented as evidence in a court proceeding in which the data subject was a party,” or where the appellant is not the subject of the data.
Winning means the record actually changes. Paragraph (g): “Data on individuals that have been successfully challenged by an individual must be completed, corrected, or destroyed by a government entity without regard to the requirements of section 138.17.” The state’s records-retention law is not a defense to a successful challenge.
What does § 13.08 actually pay?
Actual damages, costs, and attorney fees — plus $1,000 to $15,000 per violation if the violation was willful. Section 13.08, subd. 1:
Notwithstanding section 466.03, a responsible authority or government entity which violates any provision of this chapter is liable to a person … who suffers any damage as a result of the violation, and the person damaged … may bring an action against the responsible authority or government entity to cover any damages sustained, plus costs and reasonable attorney fees. In the case of a willful violation, the government entity shall, in addition, be liable to exemplary damages of not less than $1,000, nor more than $15,000 for each violation. The state is deemed to have waived any immunity to a cause of action brought under this chapter.
The opening words do real work. Section 466.03 is the list of exceptions to municipal tort liability — the subject of Minnesota municipal immunity and its exceptions — and subdivision 1 displaces it, then waives the state’s immunity outright.
“Any damage” includes emotional harm. In Navarre v. South Washington County Schools, 652 N.W.2d 9 (Minn. 2002), the Minnesota Supreme Court read that phrase: “We believe this broad language indicates that a plaintiff can recover damages for emotional harm under the MGDPA. However, a plaintiff must still satisfy the standard of proof necessary to recover such damages for emotional harm.” 652 N.W.2d at 30. A plaintiff who puts her emotional state at issue also opens the door to the defendant’s proof of her preexisting condition, treatment, and prognosis. Id. at 30–31.
Access is a separate action that does not require damage at all. Section 13.08, subd. 4(a), lets “any aggrieved person seeking to enforce the person’s rights under this chapter or obtain access to data” sue to compel compliance and “recover costs and disbursements, including reasonable attorney’s fees,” with a discretionary civil penalty “of up to $1,000 against the government entity.” The matter “shall be heard as soon as possible.” The risk is symmetrical — a frivolous action can produce a fee award for the responsible authority.
Subdivision 4(b) lists six things the court weighs before assessing that penalty, and the list doubles as an audit checklist: whether the entity designated a responsible authority (§ 13.02, subd. 16) and a compliance official (§ 13.05, subd. 13), prepared the data inventory (§ 13.025, subd. 1), developed the required procedures (§§ 13.03, subd. 2, 13.025, subd. 3, 13.05, subd. 5), conformed to a § 13.072 opinion, and trained the staff who answer requests. Subdivision 4(c) makes fees mandatory where the entity ignored a directly related § 13.072 opinion issued to it. Subdivision 2 authorizes an injunction; subdivision 3 fixes venue. And under § 13.09, a willful violation is a misdemeanor, and willful violation by a public employee “constitutes just cause for suspension without pay or dismissal of the public employee.”
Did the 2026 Legislature change § 13.04?
Yes, in one place, and not in any of the subdivisions above. The Revisor’s page for § 13.04 carries a 2026-session banner naming exactly one change: “13.04 subd. 4a has been amended by Chapter 95, Article 1, Section 2.” Subdivision 4a routes accuracy challenges by a civilly committed sex offender to the data practices compliance official of Direct Care and Treatment rather than through subdivision 4, and Laws 2026, ch. 95, art. 1, § 2, inserts “or a delegee” twice into it.
It is in force — but the banner does not tell you that. Article 1, section 2 carries no effective-date clause, unlike section 4 of the same article, which is expressly “effective the day following final enactment.” Where an act is silent, Minn. Stat. § 645.02 supplies the date: an act “enacted finally at any session of the legislature takes effect on August 1 next following its final enactment, unless a different date is specified in the act.” Chapter 95 was presented to the governor on May 13, 2026, so that date was August 1, 2026, and it has passed. Subdivisions 2, 3, and 4, and § 13.08, were untouched. A currency banner is a signal to find out which subdivision moved — not a reason to distrust the section, and not proof that anything is yet in effect.
Madgett Law, LLC handles Data Practices Act requests, denials, accuracy challenges, and § 13.08 actions against Minnesota government entities, and represents individuals in privacy and civil rights litigation in state and federal court. If an agency has refused you access to your own file, will not certify a denial in writing, or is using information you gave it for something you were never told about, send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 13.02 (subd. 3, confidential data on individuals inaccessible to the subject; subd. 8, “individual” includes a parent or guardian, with the minor’s-best-interest withholding provision; subd. 12, private data accessible to the subject; subd. 13, protected nonpublic data; subd. 16, responsible authority); § 13.025 (subd. 1, data inventory; subd. 3, written data-subject rights and access policy and the August 1 annual update; subd. 4, availability); § 13.03 (subd. 2, public-access procedures; subd. 3(f), denial must cite the specific statutory section and be certified in writing on request); § 13.04 (subd. 2, the four elements of the Tennessen warning and the § 13.82, subd. 7, investigative-data exception; subd. 3, right to be informed of the existence and classification of stored data, to be shown private or public data without charge, to copies at the actual cost of making and certifying them, the ten-day compliance period excluding Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays, and the six-month re-disclosure limit; subd. 4(a)–(i), the accuracy and completeness challenge — written notice, 30-day response, correction and notice to past recipients including recipients named by the individual, statement of disagreement, 60-day appeal to the commissioner, chapter 14 contested case, pre-hearing resolution and mediation, three grounds for dismissal, correction or destruction without regard to § 138.17, and permitted retention of the order or a summary; subd. 4a, sex offender program data challenges); § 13.05 (subd. 4, the limitation on collection and use and its paragraphs (a)–(e); subd. 4a, the seven requirements for insurance-purpose informed consent and its expiration limits; subd. 5, data protection; subd. 13, data practices compliance official); § 13.08 (subd. 1, damages, costs and reasonable attorney fees, exemplary damages of not less than $1,000 nor more than $15,000 for each willful violation, the § 466.03 override and the state’s waiver of immunity; subd. 2, injunction; subd. 3, venue; subd. 4(a), action to compel compliance, fees, the $1,000 civil penalty, in camera inspection and the frivolous-action fee shift; subd. 4(b), the six substantial-compliance factors; subd. 4(c), mandatory fees where a § 13.072 opinion was not followed); § 13.09, ¶¶ (a)–(b) (misdemeanor penalty and just cause for suspension or dismissal); § 645.02 (default effective date — “August 1 next following its final enactment, unless a different date is specified in the act”); § 645.44, subd. 5 (definition of holiday, including the option of political subdivisions as to Indigenous Peoples Day and the Friday after Thanksgiving) — all from the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes, 2025 Minnesota Statutes. Minn. R. 1205.1400 (subp. 3, definition of informed consent; subp. 4(A)–(D), no coercion, written consent identifying consequences, implied consent from silence after two mailed requests and not less than 60 days, and partial consent; subp. 5, insurer consent), Office of the Revisor of Statutes, Minnesota Rules. Session law: Laws 2026, ch. 95 (S.F. No. 476), art. 1, § 2, amending Minn. Stat. § 13.04, subd. 4a (no express effective date; presentment date May 13, 2026), compared with art. 1, § 4 (expressly “effective the day following final enactment”). Case law: Navarre v. South Washington County Schools, 652 N.W.2d 9, 30–31 (Minn. 2002) (emotional harm is recoverable “damage” under § 13.08, subd. 1, subject to the ordinary standard of proof; defendant may introduce evidence of a preexisting emotional condition where the plaintiff puts her emotional state at issue), read from the Caselaw Access Project archive.
Currency note: As of August 9, 2026, the only 2026-session amendment to § 13.04 is the amendment of subdivision 4a by Laws 2026, ch. 95, art. 1, § 2, which took effect August 1, 2026 under Minn. Stat. § 645.02. Sections 13.02, 13.025, 13.05, 13.08, and 13.09 carried no 2026 currency banner when checked on that date. No citator was available for Navarre*; the statutory language it construes remains the language of § 13.08, subd. 1, today.*
This article is general legal information about Minnesota law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Which classification applies to a particular record, whether a Tennessen warning was required or adequate, and which remedy is available depend on the entity, the data, and the timing. No outcome is promised or implied.