SecureRelease™
A cloud-based platform for FOIA and transparency management
Demand for information is on the rise. Governments at all levels—federal, state, or local—as well as higher education institutions are fielding more requests from the public for disclosure of records via the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and similar state and local disclosure and transparency laws. But FOIA requests typically require resource-strapped government organizations to identify, collect, and review volumes of material from multiple locations. It’s time to take control of the process with Deloitte SecureRelease™.
Information requests are becoming more challenging to process
Transparency is part of the bedrock of government accountability. To meet this standard, however, organizations find themselves dealing with an ever-greater volume of requests and data under FOIA, litigation, and other disclosure and transparency requirements.
At first, case management applications provided a much-needed boost to organizing disclosure requests. But they did little to increase the efficiency of request processing. It still often falls to analysts to carry out work manually, including:
- De-duplication. Record and document searches can turn up repetitive information—think email chains, which can replicate the same information hundreds or thousands of times—leaving large data sets for analysts to reconcile and creating risk of inconsistent responses.
- Line-by-line reviews. For each record provided in response to a disclosure request, an analyst must review material one line at a time to identify any portions that are subject to disclosure exemptions.
- Redactions. Sensitive or confidential information is individually redacted, increasing the risk of manual errors or inconsistencies.
Add to this the linear nature of traditional case management tools used for FOIA and other disclosure requests, which make subsequent revisions difficult, and the stage is set for rising backlogs, potential human error, and unmet expectations among the citizens you serve.
The next generation of disclosure response is here
Deloitte helps organizations make sense of information disclosure requirements, then design and implement defensible, efficient response strategies. Your next-generation disclosure program can meet stakeholder needs with:
- Technology and analytics so a department or agency can accurately review and manage information disclosure requests. This includes efficient collection, culling, review, and categorization of the information necessary for each response.
- Staffing and workflow that flex according to the circumstances of each review. Our approach includes a linear workflow model to handle routine operations, as well as an “assembly line” capability with domain specialists who can respond to surges caused by unusual or catastrophic events.
- Strike teams with subject-matter experience who can be embedded with review teams to address and respond to certain types of disclosure request or content.
Whether it’s an uptick in requests, a spike in processing and litigation costs, or a reduction in resources, our range of disclosure products and services, including SecureRelease, can assist organizations through the entire disclosure life cycle.
Deliver information to the public with openness and efficiency
Deloitte offers more than 25 years of experience working with federal, state, local, and higher education clients. We put that background to work developing SecureRelease, our software-as-a-solution (SaaS) platform for handling government record disclosure requests. Built on Relativity’s eDiscovery tool, selected for its ability to manage large volumes of electronic data, SecureRelease’s capabilities include:
- Built-in data de-duplication. During data ingestion, SecureRelease identifies documents for potential de-duplication, gleans searchable text, and uses analytics to organize the data.
- Advanced search techniques and analytics. SecureRelease accelerates review with eDiscovery analytics capabilities (not present in standard disclosure case management systems).
- AI and automation. SecureRelease comes equipped with a template of commonly exempt terms and “learns” from manual modifications to redact material under review more accurately and completely.
Deloitte also provides FOIA Managed services to help our clients process disclosure requests using Project Management Professional (PMP®) and Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) methodologies