Data & Analytics
Records & Public Records Support
Electronic records management and tooling for public records requests.
What this covers
Agencies must retain records according to schedules, produce them on request, and dispose of them when permitted. Email, chat, and cloud storage make that harder every year. HQT implements records management controls and the search and redaction tooling that public records staff need.
Typical activities
- Records inventory and mapping to retention schedules
- Retention labels and policies in Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace
- eDiscovery and search configuration for public records requests
- Redaction workflows and audit trails
- Request tracking systems and public portals
- Training for records coordinators
What you receive
Implemented retention and search configuration, documented procedures, and a request management process.
Why it matters
Public records compliance is a legal obligation with real consequences. Good tooling also cuts the staff hours each request consumes.
Signals that this work is overdue
Records problems usually surface slowly, as added staff effort rather than a visible failure. Signals worth checking:
- Requests are answered by asking custodians to search their own mailboxes, with no record of what was searched or over what date range.
- The approved retention schedule exists on paper, and nothing in email, chat, or file storage applies it.
- Litigation holds are issued by email and tracked in a spreadsheet, and no one can say which custodians are on hold today.
- The extension provisions your state allows are used on most requests rather than on the hard ones.
- Text messages, chat platforms, and agency business conducted on personal devices sit outside any preservation control.
- Redaction is done by drawing boxes in a general purpose PDF editor, which can leave the underlying text selectable in the file you release.
- No one can report how many requests are open, how old the oldest is, or which department is the bottleneck.
Several of these together usually mean an adequate search would be difficult to demonstrate if a response is challenged.
How this fits the systems you already have
Most of this work is configuration, integration, and written procedure across systems the agency already runs.
- The productivity suite. Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace both include retention and eDiscovery capability, and the subscription tier determines what is available to you. Confirm entitlements before a design depends on a feature you do not license.
- The request portal. If you already run a hosted request system, ask whether search output and redacted productions move into it cleanly, whether its clock reflects your statute rather than a vendor default, and who holds the audit trail.
- Content and agenda management. These hold the official copy of many records and carry their own retention settings, which have to agree with the approved schedule rather than compete with it.
- Line-of-business systems. Permitting, utility billing, case management, and dispatch each hold records with distinct rules and export limits. Inventory them even where none of them can change during the project.
- Digital evidence. Body-worn camera and interview media usually sit in a separate platform with its own retention categories and release rules, and video redaction is a separate workflow with different tooling and staffing.
What to require in a solicitation
- A written statement of license prerequisites before award, naming anything that depends on a higher subscription tier.
- Redaction output that is flattened, with withheld content removed from the produced file rather than covered over, and an exemption citation recorded for each withholding.
- An audit record of who searched, over what scope, what was withheld, and under which exemption, kept for the period your schedule applies to records of requests.
- A dry run report for any disposition action, with destruction enabled in production only after documented approval by the records officer.
- Acceptance conditioned on named agency staff completing a full request cycle, from intake through redacted release, without vendor assistance.
- Exported retention, label, and search configuration in a documented form that successor staff or another vendor can maintain.
- Personnel screening terms where criminal justice information is in scope, consistent with the FBI CJIS Security Policy as administered by your state's CJIS Systems Agency.
How to tell whether it worked
Take a baseline before anything changes, because these measures mean something only as a comparison: median and longest time to close a request, the share of requests closed without invoking an extension, sampled staff hours per request, the share of closed requests whose search scope and exemption basis can be reconstructed from the audit record, and the volume of eligible records actually destroyed. Repeat requests for the same record set point to something worth publishing rather than to a records failure.
Failure modes appear early: retention policies left in simulation mode indefinitely, labels created but never published to the sites that need them, holds never released after a matter closed, and a request portal that tracks correspondence without ever reaching the records themselves.
Working with HQT on this
HQT scopes this kind of work as a fixed-price or time-and-materials engagement with a written statement of work, named staff, and a defined acceptance process. We are candid about what we can take on and prefer a well-run project to an oversized one. Contact us to discuss a requirement, a draft scope, or an upcoming solicitation.
Frequently asked questions
Do text messages and chat messages count as public records?
In most states the test is the content of the message and whether it concerns public business, not the platform or the device it sits on. Courts in several states have found that communications about agency business held in personal accounts can fall within the state's public records act, and the details vary by jurisdiction. Check your own statute and retention schedule with counsel, then decide whether to move those channels onto managed platforms or capture them with an archiving tool. Either way the policy has to be enforced technically, not only announced.
Does Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace retention satisfy our state records retention requirements?
The platform enforces only what you configure in it. Retention schedules are generally issued or approved by a state archives or records agency and adopted locally, and labels, policies, and disposition settings have to be built to match that schedule item by item. Retention and eDiscovery features also vary by subscription tier in both suites, so confirm your entitlements before designing around a capability you may not license.
Can AI redact public records automatically?
Automated detection is reasonably good at finding patterns such as Social Security numbers, license plate text, addresses, and faces in video, and it can remove much of the first pass labor. Deciding that material is exempt is a legal judgment, so a reviewer still has to approve each withholding and record the exemption relied on. Treat automated redaction as triage with a review step and an audit record, and confirm that any cloud processing meets your data handling obligations, including CJIS requirements where criminal justice information is involved.
How do we reduce a public records backlog without adding staff?
Most of a backlog is search time, review time, and repeated routing between departments. Instrument the queue first so you can see where the hours actually go, then address the largest cause, which is often incomplete search tooling, redaction done in a general purpose PDF editor, or records spread across systems with no inventory. Publishing the datasets and documents that are requested repeatedly removes some requests before they are filed.
What is the difference between a public records request portal and records management?
A portal manages the relationship with the requester: intake, the statutory clock, fees, correspondence, and delivery. Records management governs what exists, where it is held, how long it is kept, and when it is destroyed. A portal placed over unmanaged records improves communication but does not make a search complete or defensible. Most agencies need both, and the two should share a common record of what was searched and what was withheld.