The CDC also recently “explored using an AI software tool to analyze documents uploaded into the FOIA system,” a spokesperson told NBC News. In turn, a group of FOIA officers have been spreading the word on “the awareness and availability of these types of tools” as part of a push to improve the FOIA process, said Michael Sarich, who oversees FOIA issues for the Department of Veterans Affairs and co-chairs the Chief FOIA Officers Council's technology subcommittee tasked with exploring the use of AI. The backlogs are ballooning at a time when agencies are anticipating a boom in storage and disclosure of electronic records, several officials said. Meanwhile, the number of backlogged requests in 2022 - nearly 207,000 - also reached record territory, up nearly 50,000 from the previous year. Last year, the 120 federal agencies subject to the federal disclosure law collectively received more than 928,000 FOIA requests - an all-time high and 90,000 more than in 2021, according to the Justice Department’s Office of Information Policy. An increasing number of requesters have turned to the courts for help in prying records loose in a timely manner. Signed into law in 1966, the Freedom of Information Act is meant to ensure government transparency and access to information by requiring agencies to provide records to citizens who make requests.īut experts widely agree the FOIA process must be modernized and fixed, as requests can sometimes take months, even years, to fulfill. “There also need to be procedures in place for challenging decisions where machine algorithms are used, including when they could be unnecessarily or illegally withholding information.” “There need to be clear standards for the use of this technology and assurances that they’re being followed,” Marshall said. He added he worries that overburdened FOIA officers introduced to AI may become too reliant on or complacent with machines to make decisions that typically require thoughtful legal analysis. So far, government agencies haven’t widely disclosed to the public what kinds of AI tools are being used, and in what fashion, Marshall said. But first, he said, it’s necessary to understand how the technology “is being trained and used by humans.” Still, some open government and civil rights advocates are already raising concerns that the government’s move toward using AI to help address FOIA problems may create new ones.Īdam Marshall, a senior staff attorney for the nonprofit government watchdog Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said he has high hopes that AI and other technology will help make more information available to the public faster. Unlike the American legal system, which for years has used court-approved “eDiscovery” technologies to help find and extract sensitive information from documents exchanged during litigation, the use of artificial intelligence for FOIA purposes is in its infancy, he said. “The problem is simply unsolvable without AI.” Baron, a University of Maryland information studies professor and leading expert on the use of artificial intelligence in government access. “There is no way for FOIA to work in the future unless you can automate searching of the millions, hundreds of millions, billions of records that these government agencies hold,” said Jason R. Officials from multiple agencies also have separately tested an AI prototype called “ FOIA Assistant” that’s being developed by a federally funded research group as a possible model for dealing with record-high numbers of new requests and growing backlogs of existing ones.
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