foiatools2014.md

Tool	Features	Open Source Technology? Documentation?	Deployment
Alavateli	An open-source platform for making public freedom of information requests to public bodies.Built to help citizens request information, and view and comment on other people's requestsAll requests made through Alaveteli, and their responses are published online for everyone to see.Used all over the world to open up governments and other public bodies.	Built with Ruby on Rails 3.x, etc, see the documentation for developers. Learn about the project at www.alaveteli.org. Read Turbo Transparency, a paper about how and why to use Alaveteli for Freedom of Information systems, and a Getting Started guide. The documentation covers installing, customising, and running your own Alaveteli site. A high-level overview, which includes a diagram of the models and how they are related.API documentation for how to get data into or out of Alaveteli.The Alaveteli Community - a mailing list, team, IRC channel, etc	What Do They Know? and 17 other jurisdictions worldwide
Alavateli's for City Councils	A dedicated back-end request management workflow for Alavateli.	WhatDoTheyKnow For Councils – features and benefits (PDF)WhatDoTheyKnow for Councils – pricing (PDF)WhatDoTheyKnow_for_Councils_FAQs (PDF)	What Do They Know?WhatDoTheyKnow for Councils Brighton & Hove case study (PDF)
Froide	Freedom of Information Laws and Public Entities are connected through a many-to-many relationship. That allows for a Public Body to be accountable under different laws.A Public Body can have a parent to represent hierarchies from the real world. They can also be categorized into classifications (e.g. ministry, council) and topical tags (e.g. environment, military) which can be defined separately.Users can create requests without a Public Body so that others can suggest an appropriate recipient later.Requests can optionally be kept private by users and published at a later point (e.g. after a related article has been published).Requests are mailed to Public Bodies through the platform via a special, request-unique email address (using SMTP) and the platform will receive answers on that mail address (by accessing an IMAP account).Search functionality for Requests and Public Bodies.A read/write REST-APIRedaction of PDFs	Froide 3.0 uses the popular Python Web framework Django and its ecosystem in themost up-to-date version 1.5.Froide is continuously tested with Python 2.6 and Python 2.7 on Travis CI including in-browser testing.Because it is built with latest Bootstrap it comes with a responsive design and is easily themeable. Developer Documentation	FragDenStaat.de and FragDenStaat.at - the German and Austrian FOI site
FOIA Machine	Submit FOI requests: Whether you're a professional FOI user or a member of the general public who has never submitted an open records request, we'll help you streamline the process.Tracking: With FOIA Machine, you can track the progress of your requests, keep your efforts organized, set reminders for yourself and more.Social Support: Until now, journalists slaved away in their own misery, swearing their way through the FOIA request process. Now you can gain support from the collective voice of the community. Find out more here!	https://github.com/cirlabs/foiamachine	Advocacy tool for US; not jurisdiction specific.
FOIA Online	The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) gives you the right to request information from federal agencies. From FOIA Online you [the public] can:- submit FOIA requests to all participating agencies,- track the status of requests,- search for requests submitted by others,- access previously released records, and- generate agency-specific FOIA processing reports.	Not open source. FOIA Online FAQs	US: Department of Commerce, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Labor Relations Authority, Merit Systems Protection Board, National Archives and Records Administration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and Department of the Navy
FOIAXpress	FOIAXpress is the most comprehensive, web-based COTS application available for processing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Privacy Act (PA) requests. As the leading FOIA management solution in the U.S., FOIAXpress is currently in use by over 200 government agencies and offices as well as state and local governments and educational institutions.- Built-in redaction toolset and full text search- Correspondence and fee/payment management- An integrated web portal to allow electronic request submission and automatic case creation- Improved efficiency to helpd reduce FOIA processing times, delays, and backlogs- Ability to produce the DOJ Annual FOIA Report in seconds	Not open source.Services, Support.	Over 200 government agencies and offices as well as state and local governments and educational institutions. See Featured Clients here.
MuckRock	MuckRock is a collaborative news site that brings together journalists, researchers, activists, and regular citizens to request, analyze & share government documents, making politics more transparent and democracies more informed.The site provides a repository of hundreds of thousands of pages of original government materials, information on how to file requests, and tools to make the requesting process easier. In addition, MuckRock staff and outside contributors do original reporting and analysis of many of the documents received through the site.Filing requests through MuckRock starts at just $20 to file up to 5 requests, which includes advice, postage, follow up, and hosting of the materials in an easy-to-use format.Users may also earn free requests through MuckRock's assignment system.	N/A	Advocacy tool for US; not jurisdiction specific.
Project FOIA --TBD	18F's FOIA modernization team. It also provides some scratch space for miscellaneous research, data, scrapers, etc.-foia-hub - User-facing portal for issuing FOI requests. (Static website)-foia-core - Core interaction between FOIA requestor and FOIA office. (Python 3 / Flask)-foia-search - A search/similarity/discovery API over information from FOIA responses. (Node / Elasticsearch)	Python 3 / Flask; Node / ElasticsearchGitHub Workspace	TBD
RecordTrac	Open records / Next-gen open government: Eliminate duplicate requests. Anyone ‐ requestor, agency, community member ‐ can review current or past requests by keyword, status or department.Manage responses / Streamline the response: Reduce the time spent on requests. Staff can respond to requests through a simple interface - allowing them to respond quickly with relevant information.Measure response / Better allocate resources and effort: Review response data for easy management. See total requests as well as average response time by department.Track and trace requests /Reduce fines from late responses: Track dates, requester, government point of contact, and correspondence. Sign up to receive email updates about a specific request.Make requests online / Digitize and streamline from the start: Individuals can make requests directed at specific departments and leave their contact information for follow up.	Python; GitHub documentationProduct Sheet (PDF)	RecordTrac - Oakland
New York City - Office of the Mayor's FOIL Tracker	You can use this page to submit a FOIL request to the Mayor's Office and to track the status of that request.To see a library of commonly-requested documents,Click Here.	Not open source.	New York City - Office of the Mayor
Washington D.C.'s FOIA portal (see alsoDC FOIA SERVO)	FOIA Request/AppealSubmission InformationRequest StatusFOIA Reading Room	Not open source.	Washington D.C.