The same week we at OGIS celebrated our 5th birthday, we celebrated another important birthday—that of FOIAonline.
An online portal aimed at expanding public access to information requested under FOIA, FOIAonline went live two years ago when five Federal agencies, including the Office of General Counsel at our parent agency, the National Archives and Records Administration, began using the system.
Eleven agencies now use FOIAonline, including Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Department of Navy. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which receives about 600 requests a day (!), recently began accepting requests that do not contain personally identifiable information.
When FOIAonline launched on October 1, 2012, about 1,600 agency FOIA professionals were registered users. Two years later, more than 4,100 FOIA professionals and 170,000 requesters are registered users. In those two years, FOIA professionals processed more than 200,000 FOIA requests and posted nearly 400,000 records.
For agencies, FOIAonline provides a secure website to receive and process requests, post responses, generate metrics, manage records electronically and create management reports. Requesters can use FOIAonline to submit FOIA requests, track their progress, communicate with the processing agency, search other requests, access previously released responsive documents and file appeals with participating agencies.
OGIS founding Director Miriam Nisbet’s involvement in the project dates to its very early days. In 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began looking at the feasibility of creating a FOIA portal using the framework of Regulations.gov, the Federal rulemaking portal that allows people to comment on Federal regulations and other agency regulatory actions. By leveraging the infrastructure of Regulations.gov, FOIAonline avoided many start-up costs, resulting in a total of $1.3 million spent to launch the system.
During the observance of OGIS’s first five years, some asked if OGIS’s involvement with FOIAonline was a productive use of OGIS resources. “We heard again and again that members of the FOIA community wanted an inexpensive shared service to make it easier to communicate with requesters and facilitate requests,” Director Nisbet said. “FOIAOnline, which is built on an existing platform and creates a central clearinghouse for released documents, addressed these needs in a number of ways.”
Krista Boyd, minority counsel to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, noted that OGIS’s involvement helped FOIAonline succeed.
“I think having OGIS involved gave it the gravitas it needed to take off,” Ms. Boyd said.
Congratulations – and thank you!