Best Practices for FOIA Video Redaction Should Focus on AI, Cloud Tools

Records Managers Should Advocate for Tools that Meet Their Agency’s Needs

The actual “best practice” in most applications for most government agencies for most FOIA requests regarding video redaction is to focus on tools that deliver speed, efficiency, and accuracy. 

At OPEXUS, we have partnered with Veritone to offer a software solution that can take any type of audio or video file, right from FOIAXpress, and run it through a secure, cloud-based redaction tool. 

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They know it’s coming, and for many it has already arrived: A dramatic increase in FOIA requests that include information and data never originally envisioned as part of the Freedom of Information Act’s scope.  

“We’ve gotten requests for Zoom call recordings, parking lot security footage, video that was texted to someone, body cam video – you name it, people are requesting it, even when we don’t have it!” said a senior records manager for a federal agency during a recent roundtable lunch and learn held at OPEXUS HQ.  

The roundtable event was held to help FOIA staff at all levels share their current best practices, concerns, and ideas as we move further into a multimedia FOIA environment.  

Multimedia FOIA Requests are Exponentially More Time Consuming

With FOIA requests surging and backlogs across government climbing, records managers are preparing as best they can for more complex requests that incorporate video and audio files. 

“Document redaction is simple compared to anything video,” said a veteran records management professional in a federal agency that includes a law enforcement component. “I don’t think our agency leaders get that video is exponentially more time consuming to redact, and the file sizes are huge.”  

In fact, redacting just one hour of video using a traditional video editing software can take up to 10 hours. Approximately 3.3 trillion hours of video surveillance footage is captured daily in the U.S., and hundreds of millions of hours are captured by government agencies, including law enforcement.  

The reviewing and redacting of that footage could take a lifetime for the small teams that manage FOIA requests across government.  

DOJ Best-Practice Guide Gets It Wrong

In 2021, the Department of Justice published its “Best Practices for Video Redaction” memo, including a statement that said, “Some agencies might require full featured video redaction software comparable to Hollywood post-production editing suites.”  

Really? Which agencies, outside of national security and defense, would need a team of video editors blurring out faces or documents in routine court proceedings, traffic stops, or Zoom meetings? The cost of a “Hollywood-style” editing suite can run thousands of dollars per hour with professional editors, production teams, and data storage considerations factored in.  

The best practice for most government agencies should be the incorporation of nimble, cloud-based, AI driven tools that a junior-level technician can be trained to use in just hours. Most of government does not need “Hollywood-style” anything. Most of government needs modern, nimble, and efficient tools that get the job done. 

Records Managers Should Advocate for Tools that Meet Their Agency’s Needs

The actual “best practice” in most applications for most government agencies for most FOIA requests regarding video redaction is to focus on tools that deliver speed, efficiency, and accuracy. 

At OPEXUS, we have partnered with Veritone to offer a software solution that can take any type of audio or video file, right from FOIAXpress, and run it through a secure, cloud-based redaction tool that: 

• Is simple to use with intuitive user controls 
• Keeps your original video and creates a new, editable redacted file for release (This means that if further redactions are needed, you don’t have to start the process over after review.)  
• Decreases video redaction time by 90% as the software finds and blurs faces, laptop screens, license plates, and other redaction-required elements of the file 
• Includes audio redaction  

• Allows for spot-redactions in areas where the scanning tool did not pick up an image or word 
• And offers and end-to-end solutions with an unbroken and defensible audit trail 

“With an ever-growing demand for immediately accessible information, the public pressure to get faster and better isn’t going away,” said one participant in the roundtable. “My agency leadership needs to understand that I need this now, not after there is a mandate that I must start releasing video. There is just no way my current team could handle it.”  

The government must start to deploy these off-the-shelf technology tools at the same pace as the private sector. They’re already falling further behind public demand by not sprinting to modernize the tech suite to meet real-time, real-world demands.  

Check out this video and see just how Veritone’s video redaction suite will transform the video redaction process.  

Start planning now to get in place so your team is ready for the next wave of multimedia FOIA mandates.