FOIA Exemption-Aligned Redaction

Overview

Development stage

In development or acquisitionSource: a) Pre-deployment – The use case is in a development or acquisition status.

High-impact designation

Not high-impactSource: c) Not high-impact

Impact justification

Not reported

Start date

Not reported

Withheld from public reporting

NoSource: a) No

Mission

Topic area

Administrative Functions

Operational functions

Search and knowledge retrieval, FOIA and records management Derived by keyword rules; see methodology

Problem the AI is intended to solve

The FOIA staff will leverage this solution to review records in response to FOIA requests, search the internet for publicly available information (names, email addresses, contact information of federal and non-federal individuals), and identify personally identifiable information (PII). The goal is to reduce the burden on the HRSA FOIA staff and process the requests quickly. Automating the manual process will save analysts time and effort and will help reduce/prevent human error. The FOIA staff reviews between 35-50 pages per hour, totaling 600 hours per month.

Expected benefits

The expected benefits of the automated solution are: - Reducing the manual effort and the time that the FOIA staff spends on converting non-PDF electronic records to PDF - Identifying information to withhold/redact under one or more FOIA exemptions - Proposing the redaction markings for human QA - Reducing the size of the PDF

System outputs

HRSA uses agentic AI to propose redactions and comments for potentially sensitive data elements for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) staff that reviews grant documents. The proposed redactions by the system will include the exemption invoked for data elements that are deemed to be not publicly available. The comments will include a URL citing the source for data elements that are deemed to be publicly available. The output of the solution will be a PDF file including proposed redactions (and exemptions invoked) along with citation comments for review. FOIA staff will review the proposed redactions and add any additional data elements to be considered for redaction. The data elements added by FOIA staff will then be queried by a search engine to determine public availability and proposed as redactions (not available) or comments (available). FOIA staff will then review the accuracy of the proposed redactions and comments. This technology will help to alleviate the FOIA staffs workload and process the requests in a more expedited manner.

Technology

AI classification

Agentic AISource: Agentic AI: AI systems that perform tasks or make decisions autonomously with minimal human intervention.

System name(s)

Not reported

Custom-developed code

Not reported

Public source code

Not reported

Sourcing

How it was built

Not reported

Vendor (as reported)

Not reported

Vendors (standardized)

None on the standard list

A vendor is the supplier named by the agency. It does not identify the underlying model or AI technology.

Data and privacy

Involves PII

Not reported

Privacy Impact Assessment

Not reported

Authorization to Operate

Not reported

Demographic features

Not reported

Training and evaluation data

Not reported

Federal Data Catalog

Not reported

Governance

0 of 8 minimum-practice questions answered. A blank answer means the agency reported nothing; it does not mean the practice is absent.

Potential impacts and how they were identified

Not reported