Hawaii Public Records Laws: The UIPA (HRS Chapter 92F) Explained

Hawaii's public records law is the Uniform Information Practices Act (Modified), Haw. Rev. Stat. chapter 92F. Any person may request, an agency generally has 10 business days to act, and Hawaii is one of the few states with a genuine public-interest fee waiver written into its rules.

Information last verified on 2026-08-04. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

This page covers Hawaii state law only. For records held by a federal agency, see our guide on how to file a FOIA request. To compare Hawaii against other states, start at the public records laws by state hub.

The Uniform Information Practices Act

Hawaii's records law is the Uniform Information Practices Act (Modified), codified at Haw. Rev. Stat. chapter 92F. It governs records held by state departments, the counties, boards and commissions, and other government agencies in Hawaii.

The modified in the name is not decoration. Hawaii adapted a uniform model act, and one of the results is that UIPA does two distinct jobs in one statute. It provides general public access to government records, and it separately provides an individual with access to a personal record about that individual, along with a right to request correction of it. Which pathway you are on affects which exemptions the agency can invoke, and the Office of Information Practices analyzes them separately.

That means it is worth being explicit in your request about which one you are using. If you are asking for a record about yourself, say so. If you are asking for a government record generally, say that. A request that does not distinguish them can get analyzed only under the narrower framework.

Hawaii also differs from most states in having a permanent agency dedicated to this law. The Office of Information Practices, established within the Department of Accounting and General Services for administrative purposes under Haw. Rev. Stat. 92F-41, administers UIPA, writes the implementing rules, issues opinions, and hears appeals. The comptroller has no power to supervise or control OIP in its quasi-judicial functions, so the office decides appeals independently of the department it is attached to. Where most states leave requesters with only a courthouse, Hawaii has an office whose job is this statute.

Who Can Request Records in Hawaii

Any person may request. UIPA defines person to include an individual, corporation, government, or governmental subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, association, or any other legal entity.

There is no residency requirement and no citizenship requirement. A mainland journalist, an out-of-state business, and a Honolulu resident all have the same standing to file. Hawaii is squarely on the open side of the residency divide, unlike Kentucky.

Hawaii Public Records Deadlines

Hawaii's deadlines have an unusual home, and citing them wrongly is a common error.

The base statute, chapter 92F, does not spell out the response deadline as a number of days. The day counts come from Hawaii Administrative Rules chapter 2-71, the rules the Office of Information Practices adopted to implement UIPA. So a request letter that cites 92F-11 for a 10-day deadline is citing the wrong instrument. Cite the administrative rule.

Under HAR chapter 2-71, the structure is:

• The agency has 10 business days to disclose the record in full, or, where segregation or redaction is needed, to provide a notice under HAR section 2-71-14 explaining what it will do.
• After that notice, or after receiving any required prepayment, the agency has 5 more business days to actually disclose.
• In extenuating circumstances, the agency may instead send a written acknowledgment within 10 business days, followed by the full notice within a reasonable time not to exceed 20 business days from the date the agency received the request.

Notice what that means in practice. The 10-business-day figure is usually a deadline to act rather than a guarantee of delivery, and the realistic full timeline for anything requiring redaction runs to about 15 business days, or longer if extenuating circumstances are invoked. These provisions are current as of August 2026.

What Hawaii Records Requests Cost

Hawaii sets specific rates in HAR section 2-71-31, which is more transparency than most states offer.

• Searching for the record: $2.50 per 15 minutes or fraction of 15 minutes.
• Review and segregation of the record: $5.00 per 15 minutes or fraction of 15 minutes.
• The agency shall not assess the first $30 in total of those two categories combined.

Copying charges are separate from those search and review fees.

The $30 floor is doing real work. At $2.50 per quarter hour of search and $5.00 per quarter hour of review, $30 buys a meaningful amount of staff time, so a well-targeted request often ends up costing nothing beyond copying.

The Public-Interest Fee Waiver

This is where Hawaii stands out. Under HAR section 2-71-32, an agency shall waive $60 of the fees that may be assessed under section 2-71-31 when two conditions are met:

1. The request for a waiver of fees is supported by a statement of facts.
2. The agency finds that the waiver of fees would be in the public interest.

Section 2-71-32 does not leave public interest to argument. It supplies a three-part test, and all three parts have to be met: the requested record pertains to the operations or activities of government, the record is not readily available to the public through other means, and the requester has the intent and the ability to widely disseminate the information to the public.

Write your statement of facts against those three elements in order. A waiver request that argues newsworthiness in the abstract, without addressing availability or dissemination, is missing two thirds of the test.

Most states have no public-interest waiver at all, and readers routinely assume one exists everywhere because the federal FOIA has one. In Georgia, Kansas, Idaho, Kentucky, and Florida there is nothing comparable. Illinois is the exception among Hawaii's usual comparison set, since 5 ILCS 140/6(c) does provide a public-interest waiver. Hawaii genuinely has one, and it is written as a duty to waive when the conditions are met rather than as pure discretion.

Two practical points follow. The waiver is a fixed $60 rather than a full write-off, so it stacks on top of the $30 non-assessment rather than eliminating a large bill outright. And it is not automatic: you have to ask, and you have to supply a statement of facts explaining why disclosure serves the public interest. A one-line assertion that the public deserves to know is not a statement of facts. Name what the records would show, who benefits from knowing, and why.

How to File a UIPA Request

Requests go to the individual agency that holds the record. The Office of Information Practices publishes a standard request form, and using it is the cleanest route because it maps onto the rules the agency is following.

1. Identify the agency. State departments and the four counties keep their own records.
2. Use the OIP request form or a written letter.
3. State whether you are seeking a government record generally or a personal record about yourself.
4. Describe the records specifically. Because search is billed by the quarter hour with a $30 floor, precision has a direct effect on price.
5. If cost is a concern, request the public-interest fee waiver in the same letter and include your statement of facts.
6. Note the date sent. The 10-business-day clock runs from receipt.

Our free FOIA request generator produces a Hawaii-specific request citing UIPA. Nothing entered into it is stored or transmitted.

Exemptions Under UIPA

UIPA's general exemptions from public disclosure appear in Haw. Rev. Stat. 92F-13, and the personal-record access exceptions appear in 92F-22. They cover categories including records that would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, records pertaining to the prosecution or defense of an action to which the agency is or may be a party, government records that by their nature must be confidential to avoid frustrating a legitimate government function, records protected by other statute or court order, and inchoate and draft working papers.

Because Hawaii runs a dedicated records agency, the exemption case law here is unusually accessible. OIP publishes its formal and informal opinions, and they are searchable. If an agency cites an exemption you doubt, it is often worth checking whether OIP has addressed that exemption in a published opinion before escalating.

Police Records and Body Camera Footage

Hawaii has no body-worn camera statute. There is no dedicated provision naming who may view footage, no statutory viewing timeline, and no equivalent of Kansas's K.S.A. 45-254 or Kentucky's KRS 61.168.

The Office of Information Practices addressed this directly in Formal Opinion F22-01, issued in December 2021, and its conclusion is the right framework to work from. Body-worn camera recordings are analyzed under the general UIPA exemptions, and whether and to what extent they may be withheld must be determined on a case-by-case basis.

In that opinion, OIP found that the police department could deny personal-record access under Haw. Rev. Stat. 92F-22(1)(A), and general public access under 92F-13(1), to only the portions of body-worn camera recordings of statements by witnesses that would identify those witnesses. The word only matters. OIP's analysis was portion-specific rather than record-wide, which is the posture to hold an agency to: redaction of identifying material rather than blanket withholding of an entire recording.

Two consequences for a Hawaii requester. There is no automatic right to footage, so an agency denial is not necessarily improper. But there is also no categorical exemption, so an agency that withholds an entire recording without explaining why each portion is exempt is not applying the standard OIP set. That is exactly the kind of dispute the OIP appeal process is built to resolve, and it is free.

For 911 audio and dispatch records, see our page on whether 911 calls are public records.

Appealing a Denial to the Office of Information Practices

Hawaii's appeal path costs nothing and does not require a lawyer, which makes it the right first step in almost every case.

Under Haw. Rev. Stat. 92F-15.5, a person denied access may seek OIP review. The outcomes are set out plainly in the statute:

• If OIP's decision is to disclose, OIP notifies the person and the agency, and the agency shall make the record available.
• If the denial of access is upheld, in whole or in part, OIP notifies the person in writing of the decision, the reasons for it, and the right to bring a judicial action under 92F-15(a).

The legal weight of an OIP decision is worth stating precisely, because it is neither purely advisory nor flatly binding on a court. Under 92F-15(b), OIP opinions and rulings are admissible and shall be considered as precedent unless found to be palpably erroneous. That is strong deference. The one carve-out: in an action to compel disclosure brought by an aggrieved person after OIP upheld the agency's denial, the opinion upholding the denial is reviewed de novo.

Read that structure carefully, because it is favorable to requesters in an asymmetric way. An OIP ruling generally carries precedential weight, but the one situation where a court starts fresh is the situation where OIP ruled against the requester. Losing at OIP therefore does not lock in that result if you go to court.

If you do litigate and prevail, Haw. Rev. Stat. 92F-15(d) provides that the court shall assess against the agency reasonable attorney's fees and all other expenses reasonably incurred.

Records UIPA Does Not Reach

Birth, death, and marriage certificates are vital records held by the Hawaii Department of Health under a separate statutory scheme with eligibility limits on who may obtain a certified copy. They are not UIPA requests. Our Hawaii death records guide covers who qualifies and how to order.

Deeds and land records are recorded through the Bureau of Conveyances and the Land Court, covered in our Hawaii property records guide. Court case files and warrants are judiciary records governed by their own access rules; see Hawaii warrant search.

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Disclaimer

This article provides general legal information about Hawaii's Uniform Information Practices Act as of August 2026. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Statutes, administrative rules, and fee schedules change. If a public records dispute affects your legal rights, consult an attorney licensed in Hawaii about your specific situation.

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Last updated: 2026-08-04.