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Case Study: FOIA Compliance

Manage the Freedom of Information lifecycle with a single application to streamline and automate review-redact-print workflows.

The Challenge

Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), enacted in the United States in July 1966, Government departments across Federal, State, and Local agencies are required to respond to public requests by providing information in compliance with strict legal and government policies. Ultimately, the goal of these Freedom of Information laws, also endorsed throughout Canada, Europe, and 65 other nations, is to demonstrate organizational accountability and control to both internal and external stakeholders.

Today, federally mandated FOIA standards guide hundreds of departments across Government agencies in the preparation of documents, such as geographical maps, office documents, financial accounting information, Human Resource records, from a variety of digital, laser fiche, and hard copy formats, for FOIA-compliant public disclosure.

Currently, manual FOIA processing involves searching, scanning, reviewing, redacting, approving, and publishing millions of information requests, stored in billions of records, spread across thousands of Government locations and throughout networked Records Management (RM), Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and other home-grown systems.

In 2005, FOIA report data shows that Federal agencies received and processed more than 2.6 million FOIA requests, devoting “aggregate 5000 employee-years to handling them… at a cost in excess of $300 million per year.” (Source: Executive Order 13,392, Oct. 16, 2006.) 

FOIA Service Centers within Federal agencies and departments are increasingly pressured by Executive Order to meet FOIA requests quickly, to reduce existing and mounting FOIA backlogs, and to avoid the risk of non-compliance penalties, which include huge legal costs.

The Spicer Solution

Spicer FREEDOM™ is the only redaction solution that combines unlimited visualization and end-to-end FOIA processing. FOIA, Records Management, IT, and Legal/Solicitor departments benefit from streamlined and automated processes and features available throughout the FOIA lifecycle.

• Rapidly search and process hundreds of file types.
• Easily track individual or departmental redaction sessions involved with each FOIA case.
• Streamline redaction reporting and approval processes
• Create secure redactions with TIFF and PDF output, while maintaining original records.

Government and corporations can quickly and cost effectively implement a stand-alone FOIA processing system or integrate a solution within their existing document and records management networks.

Business Benefits

• Reduce the high costs of the FOIA lifecycle by providing immediate ROI on cross-platform technology that is easy to install, scalable, and easy-to-use by all agency departments, from Records Management to Legal.
• Increase Customer Service efficiency and responsiveness by streamlining and automating FOIA review-redact-publish processes.
• Reduce risk of non-compliance penalties with the use of automated redaction features tailored to your FOIA processes