NexGen FOIA Tech Showcase Wrap-up

On February 9th and 10th, 18 private-sector vendors convened virtually for the NexGen FOIA Tech Showcase. This event was held thanks to the collaborative efforts of the Technology Committee of the Chief FOIA Officers Council (CFO), the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) at the National Archives and Records Administration, and the Office of Information Policy (OIP) at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

This event – the first of its kind – identified FOIA technology solutions for federal agencies in response to particular FOIA case processing challenges raised through the Technology Committee’s work.  In addition, the event was intended to help federal agencies better understand the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and advanced/emerging technology for case processing.

Vendors shared issues, insights, and explored potential solutions in the following areas:

  • eDiscovery/electronic record search tools; 
  • case processing tools (including the collection of records to review for redaction and posting accessible 508-compliant releases); 
  • redaction tools (including tools that allow for automatic redaction of similar forms and record types including paper, digital content, videos, data, etc.); 
  • AI tools that may assist with FOIA case processing;  
  • the future of FOIA;  
  • improved public FOIA reading rooms/websites; and  
  • improving the FOIA customer experience.

Although attendance was limited to government employees, we invite everyone to watch vendor demonstration videos on the National Archives YouTube channel and read the request for information (RFI) submissions on OGIS’s Chief FOIA Officers Council website (scroll to bottom of page).