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Technology has the potential to transform FOIA administration, and the Administration has taken significant steps to accomplish
this commitment. More than one hundred offices across the U.S. Government are now employing web portals that allow the public
to electronically submit a FOIA request. Not only has this made submitting requests easier for requesters, it has also made
it easier for the agencies to log, track, and respond to requests. Technology can bring significant efficiencies to FOIA administration.
One of the most common difficulties in processing FOIA requests is the large amount of time spent by FOIA personnel searching
for, de-duplicating, and conducting initial responsiveness reviews on records. Over the course of the last year, several Federal
agencies have replaced time-intensive manual processes with software applications that automatically deduplicate, thread and
sort emails, pre-process and tag records, and create document indices. Since these technologies require a large initial investment,
OIP conducted a pilot to assess the savings in time and expense that can be realized through the use of such tools, and presented
the highly encouraging results at a government-wide conference held in February 2013. The agencies in attendance expressed
great interest to explore expansion of this technological capability. The Administration realizes that FOIA tools for agencies
are not one-size-fits-all. Federal agencies have different structures, receive different types of requests, have widely varying
budgets, and vary in the levels of technology already in use - as some agencies still work with paper files. In order to further
the Administration's commitment to utilize technology in FOIA administration government-wide, OIP has released guidance and
tutorials to help agencies bring the technology that they have to bear in order to make FOIA administration easier. OIP combined
its training role with its commitment to leverage technology by hosting its first video conference for FOIA training in early
2013. This method of training not only allows subject matter experts to reach a wider audience of Federal FOIA professionals
outside of the Washington, D.C. area, but in some cases significantly reduces agency travel costs associated with FOIA training.
Additionally, through the FOIA Technology Working Group, agencies have a forum for exchanging ideas and experiences on ways
to better use technology to streamline the FOIA process, help agencies gain efficiencies, and improve the online availability
of information. Agencies throughout the U.S. Government are now developing new ways to use technology to improve FOIA administration.
For example, some agencies have developed shared platforms so that multiple offices can view and comment on a document simultaneously,
thereby allowing a consensus to be reached on its handling. Similarly, OGIS offers a wiki to allow multiple agencies receiving
the same FOIA request to share information and work together. One effort that has been of particular interest to the requester
community has been the FOIAonline project launched by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Commerce,
and NARA and currently also utilized by the Department of the Treasury (Treasury), the Federal Labor Relations Authority,
and the Merit Systems Protection Board. This shared portal allows members of the public to submit and track FOIA requests
made to the agencies using the portal in one central place. The portal can be used to forward documents to other agencies
using the system for consultation, and it provides a central "FOIA library" for the participating agencies to post requested
documents. We recognize that there is a strong desire by some for FOIAonline to be immediately adopted as a centralized government-wide
portal, but the project is still in its infancy, and deciding to integrate a single technology across agencies presents a
number of significant challenges and requires appropriate deliberativeness. The Administration is eager to learn from this
project, particularly whether and how a single centralized FOIA administration system and library can be successfully integrated
on a wider scale. The Administration has also continued to improve FOIA.gov, a FOIA website launched by DOJ as part of its
open government plan that gives requesters a centralized location to learn about FOIA, including data collected by DOJ and
information about how to submit a FOIA request. The Administration has successfully aunched a number of new projects on FOIA.gov
in the past year. For example, the website can now graphically display detailed statistics on an agency's FOIA administration,such
as numbers of requests received and processed, exemptions used, and response time. Not only are these statistics now being
gathered quarterly for the first time, but they are also automatically collected using simple web tools, allowing agencies
to focus more energy on processing requests. The "Find" feature offers the public a convenient way to search across all agency
websites. This function reduces the need to submit a FOIA request and allows the public to readily see the range of agencies
that might have documents publicly available on a topic of interest to them. Additionally, FOIA.gov now has content available
in Spanish. There are also great new tools for the public and agencies on the OGIS website. For example, it is now possible
for those seeking mediation services to submit their requests through a web form and track the progress of their requests
to OGIS online. Federal agencies have also made great strides in improving their own FOIA websites. They are making their
websites more usable for the public, including posting searchable databases and adding mobile applications to disseminate
information to the public. And they are increasingly identifying records that are of interest to the public and posting them
proactively on their websites. Many agencies are also publishing their FOIA logs of requests received on an on-going basis,
including making them accessible as a PDF or CSV file. The Administration has made significant progress over the past year,
with progress to come. In the coming months, OIP will be: - Issuing guidance to agencies on posting documents to agency FOIA
Libraries in a way that will allow for the creation of a virtual government-wide FOIA Library. - Issuing guidance on the FOIA's
proactive disclosure requirements and the directives of the President and Attorney General to use technology to make information
known to the public. - Updating the DOJ Guide to the FOIA, making it an online "living" document. In this new format, DOJ
will be able to add to the Guide significant new developments in the FOIA as they occur. This new version will also have links
to source material and allow users the ability to search the entire treatise comprehensively as opposed to searching one section
at a time. - Expanding the Annual FOIA Report web tool so that it provides agencies not only the ability to create XML data
reports, but also human-readable reports. - Developing an online training course about the FOIA to be available to all Federal
employees in keeping with the Attorney General's mandate that FOIA is everyone's responsibility. Processing FOIA requests
is a fundamentally labor intensive task, and working to improve timeliness is especially difficult at a time when initial
requests have been steadily increasing and budgets have been decreasing. By providing agencies and FOIA professionals with
new tools and expanding access to training online, the Administration is working hard to fulfill its commitment to improve
transparency through further use of technology. While there is always more work to be done, the Administration believes this
commitment has been met. As the Supreme Court has said, FOIA is a "structural necessity in a real democracy." The Administration
agrees, and is committed to continuing to utilize technology to help aid in this process.
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We will expand our use of technology to achieve greater efficiencies in FOIA administration, including utilization of technology
to assist in searching for and processing records. Moreover, as agencies increasingly post information on their websites,
we will work to ensure that the information is searchable and readily usable by the public.
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