State of FOIA 2024: Firsthand Perspectives on Challenges, Opportunities in Open Records

Open government is at an inflection point. Public interest in requesting records is at an all-time high. At the same time, the amount of data held by the government is ballooning while public records offices are experiencing funding and staffing shortages. This combination of factors—plus the proven, growing complexity of the records requests—is causing growing backlogs, which now exceed 200,000 cases at the federal level.

OPEXUS recently conducted a survey of FOIA/public records officers across federal, state, and local agencies to learn more about their FOIA and open records programs. OPEXUS, in partnership with Veritone and Carahsoft, shared the results of that survey.

During this webinar, speakers from OPEXUS and Veritone:

• Spotlighted firsthand perspectives about the state of open government in 2024
• Explored the specific obstacles FOIA officers face in their daily processes
• Shared opinions of FOIA officers on how technology, particularly machine learning, could enhance their workflows and drive overall improvements