DHS will use Google’s AI tools to recommend that information be excluded from FOIA requests.
Document redactions have been in the spotlight lately thanks to the release of the Epstein dossier by the US Department of Justice, which used it to black out the text of millions of documents. Now the government is considering using AI to handle this chore of drafting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, according to GitHub documents viewed by The Washington Post.
These documents indicate that U.S. Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security, will use Google’s AI tools to recommend information that FOIA officers should redact. By the end of September, DHS will use AI for documents that account for more than 10 percent of FOIA requests, or between 100,000 and 140,000 in total.
Following these recommendations, DHS employees will review cases to ensure the requester gets what the document calls “accurate and complete” information, an interesting term given the potential redaction. “(T)his automation is expected to significantly reduce processing times,” the description states.
As part of his research, the Job discovered copywriting-related AI tools used or developed by other agencies. The Home Office uses Microsoft tools to redact potential attorney-client information, while the Justice Department uses a Veriton tool called aiWARE to redact videos. The Health and Human Services (HHS) division is developing its own tool, FRED, to redact unknown information. “The FDA is responsibly exploring limited uses of AI to help FOIA staff process cases more effectively,” a spokesperson told the Job.
Although the government touts these tools as a time-saver, it could lead to even more obscured or missing documents. “I think we need to watch very carefully how the government uses AI to redact records, because I think it’s going to be a very powerful tool for secrecy,” said a FOIA expert at the University of Florida. THE Washington Post.
