Recordkeeping and Transparency in the Era of AI: What We Learned from 2024 Headlines
In our recent webinar, “Recordkeeping Headlines from 2024 and The Future of Transparency,” our experts reflected on the latest trends in government recordkeeping and transparency, including the rising role of artificial intelligence (AI). In this discussion, our experts shared critical best practices for how government and public sector agencies can best prepare for open records requests in 2025 and beyond. Below of some key highlights.
Why government recordkeeping matters
This past year was quite an insightful one as government agencies and courts across the country continued to wrestle with tough questions and challenges concerning the myriad open records requests, spanning elections-related data to law enforcement records. The last year also serves as a barometer for what government recordkeeping and transparency trends may be on the horizon in 2025.
Lawsuits challenging government agencies’ open records
One major headline from 2024 addressed the right of a litigant to obtain records from a local or state government entity under a state’s public records law if that individual’s litigation against the government agency has already commenced.
On Dec. 9, 2024, the Colorado Supreme Court found in favor of an attorney who had requested a recording from a county board meeting. The county clerk denied the request, arguing that the attorney had “unlawfully circumvented” Colorado’s Rules of Civil Procedure. The attorney sued the county, alleging Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) violations.
In a majority opinion, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in favor of the litigant, finding that “a litigant may obtain records under CORA even if those records are relevant to pending litigation,” and even if the litigant did not seek any records through discovery in his civil action against the county’s board.
The opinion was not unanimous, however. While Chief Justice Monica Márquez and Justice Carlos Samour agreed that the litigant was entitled to the meeting recording, they ruled that the reasoning was “only because it amounted to a proper discovery request under the rules of civil procedure … not because it was a proper request under [CORA].”
Chief Justice Márquez expressed “grave concern” in a concurring opinion that the ruling “distorts the litigation process for public entities across the state.”
Jeff Roberts, Executive Director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, says that only time will tell what broader impact this ruling will have. “I have not heard of a lot of these cases,” he says.
Lawsuits challenging law enforcement transparency
Open records requests for law enforcement records have also been on the upswing in recent years, particularly for police body cam and dashcam footage since the 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the 2019 killing of Elijah McClain in Aurora, Colorado. During the webinar, Roberts shared some relevant high-profile court cases that happened in Colorado.
Under Colorado’s Law Enforcement Integrity Act, all local law enforcement agencies and the Colorado State Patrol must wear body-worn cameras. The Act also requires that they publicly release recordings of an incident within 21 days following a misconduct complaint.
In one case that made headlines in 2024, the City of Boulder, Colorado demanded as much as $8,484 in fees for the public release of bodycam and dashcam footage of a fatal police shooting by the Boulder Police Department. The city argued that the fee was necessary to recoup the costs of going through all the footage to redact certain parts for privacy-protection reasons. The judge in that case ruled that Colorado’s Law Enforcement Integrity Act includes no fee provision and cannot charge for the release of the footage.
Bill Tolson, president of Tolson Communications, says the case highlights a challenge many law enforcement agencies face nationwide, which is the monumental cost of storing gigabytes upon gigabytes of data from bodycam and dashcam footage. Significant time and resources are also required to sift through all this footage to determine whether it contains private data that cannot be publicly released, he says.
Other cases concerning challenges to law enforcement transparency include some investigative journalism groups. These groups have filed lawsuits nationwide against law enforcement agencies in those states seeking the release of the names, birth dates, ranks, and all disciplinary records of officers in those states. Such cases have been filed in Colorado, Delaware, New York, and Wisconsin.
“We’ve seen this for years where police officers get into trouble in one place, lose their job, and end up in another department,” says Roberts. However, as these officers move from department to department, there is no easy way for agencies or the public to track them, Roberts adds.
Roberts says that is why investigative nonprofit journalism groups, like the Invisible Institute, have been working on this nationwide database of police officers, “so people can track and more easily uncover information about police misconduct.”
Riley Lambert, senior government account executive at Smarsh, stresses that what these cases highlight is that there is mounting pressure from the public for greater government transparency and accountability. “That’s definitely part of some of the shifts that we're seeing nationwide,” he says.
In the event of a high-profile incident, like a police shooting, allegations of excessive force, or other misconduct, law enforcement agencies should anticipate an influx in open records requests. The webinar panel experts agreed that one way that law enforcement agencies, and other agencies, can proactively prepare is by having an open records archiving solution in place.
Election-related records requests
Another common challenge records custodians faced nationwide this past election year was keeping up with the inundation of election records requests. Roberts shared how Colorado addressed the challenge head-on.
An omnibus elections bill, signed into law by Colorado Governor Jared Polis in June 2024, included a provision that gave county clerks up to 20 working days to comply with CORA requests during election seasons, providing an exception for requests made by journalists to meet deadlines.
Especially during an election year, Colorado, like many states, often doesn’t have the time and resources needed to handle and respond timely to the influx in open records requests for election-related data.
AI: The next frontier in open records requests
AI, which became mainstream in 2024, will continue to impact open records and other public records requests in 2025, meaning public sector organizations should prepare accordingly.
AI tools have the potential to assist government agencies and public sector organizations in several other ways, such as compiling and retrieving data, or responding to open records requests in a much faster and more efficient manner.
Roberts says one potential use case is to train AI to sort through which records, or types of records, are most commonly requested. Agencies and organizations could then use this insight to proactively publish these documents online before being overwhelmed with open records requests, he says.
Another possible use case for AI may be to train data to more easily and efficiently redact records containing sensitive or confidential information that cannot be released to the public. “We have to watch for over-redaction and giving AI too much control,” Roberts cautions. “You still need human oversight.”
Best practices for responding to open records requests
One best practice for responding to open records requests is to use a records archiving solution, like Smarsh, that can quickly retrieve information. Lambert says it’s also a good idea to frequently take inventory of communication channels and the organization’s methods for electronic recordkeeping, especially as these communication tools evolve and incorporate new features, such as AI.
Without a proper solution in place, some of these communication channels, as they evolve or get added, can go unaccounted for without an archiving solution in place. For example, Smarsh automates the capture of over 100 different communication channels.
Data consolidation is another best practice. Tolson advises looking at how many storage repositories the agency or organization uses, or whether laptops are being used to store data. Consolidating data will make open records requests and e-discovery requests “much faster, much simpler,” he says.
Tolson adds that, as data is being consolidated into an archiving solution or wherever data is being stored, always keep data privacy and data security requirements top-of-mind.
“You need to ensure that data is secured and handled properly,” stresses Lambert.
How Smarsh can assist government agencies with records requests
All the headaches and challenges government agencies and public sector organizations face in responding to rising open records requests can be resolved, in part, simply by utilizing an open records archiving solution. “All of this doesn't have to be done manually,” says Lambert.
As a strategic partner and provider of technical solutions, Smarsh can help. “Involve us in your early conversations,” Lambert concludes. “We’re happy to help educate, advise, provide guidance, and then, when the time comes, provide you with a solution.”
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Scalable for organizations of all sizes, the Smarsh platform provides customers with compliance built on confidence. It enables them to strategically future-proof as new communication channels are adopted, and to realize more insight and value from the data in their archive. Customers strengthen their compliance and e-discovery initiatives and benefit from the productive use of email, social media, mobile/text messaging, instant messaging and collaboration, web, and voice channels.
Smarsh serves a global client base that spans the top banks in North America and Europe, along with leading brokerage firms, insurers, and registered investment advisors. Smarsh also enables state and local government agencies to meet their public records and e-discovery requirements. For more information, visit www.smarsh.com.
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