Your point would have been made better without name-calling.
You are asking for leniency on the side of the officials, yet do not seem to be willing to apply the same standard to the requester. Yes, it could have been handled better, but that applies equally to both sides. Anybody that does FOI requests that have the potential to retrieve a lot of sensitive data due to mis-understandings or mistakes (which is pretty much all of them) should handle the data carefully until they have verified upon receipt that it is what it should be and that the data is not somehow more sensitive than intended.
The author did ok in that respect, could have still done better and the city would have been served better by refusing the request as stated until order by a judge to release it based on the grounds that it is an overbroad request, which will result in the release of privacy sensitive information if fulfilled.
You are asking for leniency on the side of the officials, yet do not seem to be willing to apply the same standard to the requester. Yes, it could have been handled better, but that applies equally to both sides. Anybody that does FOI requests that have the potential to retrieve a lot of sensitive data due to mis-understandings or mistakes (which is pretty much all of them) should handle the data carefully until they have verified upon receipt that it is what it should be and that the data is not somehow more sensitive than intended.
The author did ok in that respect, could have still done better and the city would have been served better by refusing the request as stated until order by a judge to release it based on the grounds that it is an overbroad request, which will result in the release of privacy sensitive information if fulfilled.