Bills Introduced to Amend the Illinois Freedom of Information Act
Yesterday, we reported on some of the bills introduced in the Illinois General Assembly to amend the Open Meetings Act. Today, we share some of the bills recently introduced that would amend the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
Senate Bill 226 - This bill would amend Section 5 of FOIA to expand on the list of records that a public body must maintain and make available to also include a "plain-text description of each of the types of categories of information of each field of each database of the public body" as well as a "sufficient description of the structures of all databases" so that a requester can request a public body to perform specific database queries.
Senate Bill 1357 - This bill would amend FOIA to add a new Section 10.5 called "Abusive requests by elected officials using aliases." If passed, this bill would prohibit any elected official of a local government from using an alias, false identity, or other deceptive means to submit a FOIA request, and make that action a Class A misdemeanor and require an official found guilty of this offense to reimburse the local government for "unreasonable or excessive costs" incurred by the local government (as defined in this bill) in processing the FOIA request.
Senate Bill 1386 - This bill would prohibit a public body from appointing a private attorneys or law firms to serve as a FOIA officer, and only authorize appointment of an elected or appointed official (which change also seems to preclude appointment of an employee of the public body to serve as the FOIA officer, which practice is quite common).
Senate Bill 1489 - This bill would amend the FOIA exemption in 7(1)(d-5) to expand the exemption for "law enforcement records" to include those contained in a shared electronic record management system by a "criminal justice agency" (not just a law enforcement agency).
House Bill 21 - This bill would amend FOIA to express exclude "junk mail" from the definition of public records.
House Bill 31 - This bill would amend FOIA to create a new process for responding to FOIA requests that constitute an "automated request," as defined in this bill. An automated request is a FOIA request that the public body reasonably believes was drafted in whole or in part with the assistance of AI or other automating software and is submitted without any specific, affirmative action take by a human. If enacted, this would provide the public body with additional time to respond and the authority to charge fees to respond to the automated request, provided the public body follows the procedures set forth in the bill.
House Bill 1740 - This bill would amend FOIA to provide additional time for a public body to respond to a FOIA request for officer-worn body camera recordings. If the record is permitted to be released under the Law Enforcement Officer-Worn Body Camera Act, the public body would have 15 business days to respond to that request (rather than 5 business days). The public body would also have the ability to extend the time for response for an additional 15 business days.
House Bill 1855 and House Bill 1856 - These two bills would amend FOIA to expand the definition of "public body" to include the judicial branch and components of the judicial branch of government. The bill would also exempt drafts of judicial orders or opinions from release.
House Bill 2334 - This bill would amend FOIA to provide that all electronically submitted FOIA requests must include the request in the body of the submission, and that no public body is required to open attachments or hyperlinks to view a request as a cybersecurity measure.
House Bill 2421 - This bill would propose the same changes as discussed above for Senate Bill 1489.
House Bill 2518 - This bill would add a new FOIA exemption to protect information and documents that are obtained by the Attorney General or State's Attorney and exempt under the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Practices Act
House Bill 2576 - This bill would require a public body to release an unredacted copy of a traffic crash report if an attorney provides an affidavit confirming they represent an individual in the traffic crash.
House Bill 2578 - This bill would modify the definition of "person" under FOIA and authorize a public body to require a requester to verify that the requester is a person. The time for response would be tolled until the requester provides such verification, and if not response is made within 30 days, the public body is authorized to deny the request.
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