AI can help FOIA offices combat onslaught of bot-powered requests, report says

Bots powered by artificial intelligence are inundating open records offices with often frivolous petitions, but the same tools underpinning these software applications can also help professionals improve the document disclosure process, according to a survey of federal personnel who process Freedom of Information Act — or FOIA — requests.

The report, released on Tuesday by software firm OPEXUS, found that FOIA officers were concerned about declining numbers of personnel, particularly as open records requests have grown in recent years. 

The findings were based on a condensed sample of 36 responses from federal FOIA workers. OPEXUS — which provides software to help agencies process FOIA requests — also received responses from an additional 13 state and local open records staffers that were broken out in a separate section of the report. 

When asked what change would have the biggest impact on their agency’s FOIA program, 47% of respondents said increased staffing would be the most beneficial to completing their work in a timely manner. This comes, the report said, as “the number of full-time equivalent FOIA personnel in 2023 decreased from 5,268 to 4,944 the year prior, a 6% decrease.”

Fewer FOIA professionals are processing more complex requests, the report noted, even as the federal backlog of open petitions already exceeds 200,000. And these already overburdened offices are now facing a new challenge: bots. 

“This issue is becoming a significant concern at all levels of government,” the report said, noting that “at a recent OPEXUS FOIA Officers Roundtable, almost all 20 FOIA officers were experiencing AI-driven bots submitting a ‘crippling’ number of FOIA requests, making it difficult or nearly impossible for agency components to tackle their backlog of requests.”

OPEXUS CEO Howard Langsam told Nextgov/FCW that “some people will set up bots to submit malicious requests to just try to inundate the agency with requests, whether they really care about the information or not.”

Although AI is helping to fuel the onslaught of bot requests, the report said the answer “is to fight technology with technology.”

Ninety-three percent of federal FOIA officers surveyed said they believed “AI has a key role to play in helping to review, sort and deduplicate requests,” including by “reducing the overall amount (and improving the quality) of requests, more manageable backlogs, less time spent sorting and redacting files and faster response times.”

“Being able to detect those [bots] without having to manually process them would be really helpful,” Langsam said. 

FOIA officers expressed the need, however, for their agencies to employ more resources toward the technologies that are already in use. After staffing concerns, 27% of respondents said increased investment in technology training was their second-greatest need. 

“Essentially, workers are saying: Yes, we need more people,” the report noted. “But we also need better tools and training to do our job efficiently.”