Privacy Act Automation

Overview

Development stage

DeployedSource: c) Deployed – The use case is being actively authorized or utilized to support the functions or mission of an agency.

High-impact designation

Not high-impactSource: c) Not high-impact

Impact justification

Not reported

Start date

Not reported

Withheld from public reporting

Not reported

Mission

Topic area

Administrative Functions

Operational functions

FOIA and records management Derived by keyword rules; see methodology

Problem the AI is intended to solve

VBA receives over 160,000 Privacy Act requests each year requiring personnel to retrieve, review, and release these records to the Veteran. Prior to the D.AI solution, this process was highly manual, requiring significant labor resources that led to an ever-increasing backlog. AI is used by the contractor to create a preliminary set of recommended redactions that accelerates the review for VBA staff.

Expected benefits

Since D.AI deployed, VA has processed over 25,000 cases through the system, using a smaller team of VA FTE to review and release these cases and reducing response time for lower complexity cases from over a month to less than 4 days. Overall, this solution increases the efficiency of CSD personnel, allowing them to release over a hundred cases a day instead of 3.5, reduces the cost to the government by allowing for eDelivery, and improving the Veteran experience by delivery of quicker and more accessible records.

System outputs

The D.AI system retrieves documents based on the request type, as defined by VA, and then completes a preliminary processing review based on defined business rules for redaction. The request is then finalized by VA before release to the Veteran.

Technology

AI classification

Generative AISource: Generative AI: AI that generates new or synthetic content (e.g., images, videos, audio, text, code).

System name(s)

Not reported

Custom-developed code

No

Public source code

Not reported

Sourcing

How it was built

Purchased from vendorSource: a) Purchased from a vendor

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