Int. No. 1235

By Council Members Brewer, Gutiérrez, Schulman, Rivera and Cabán

A Local Law to amend the New York city charter, in relation to the creation of a centralized system for processing freedom of information law requests

Be it enacted by the Council as follows:

Section 1. Chapter 72 of the New York city charter is amended by adding a new section 3012 to read as follows:

§ 3012 Centralized freedom of information law request system. a. For the purposes of this section, the following terms shall have the following meanings:

Agency. The term “agency” means any governmental entity of the city of New York subject to the requirements of article 6 of the public officers law;

Request. The term “request” means a freedom of information law request for records made pursuant to article 6 of the public officers law and received by an agency.

b. The commissioner, in consultation with the department of information technology and telecommunication or any successor agencies, shall develop and maintain a portal to process all requests for records made pursuant to article 6 of the public officers law, whether such requests are received through this system or sent directly to an agency by any method. Such portal shall be maintained on the department’s website, and shall provide information documenting each step of the freedom of information law process for each request received, including the following information, which shall be in a machine readable and externally searchable format:

1. A unique identification number for each request;

2. A title related to the content of each request, as summarized by the freedom of information law officer for the applicable agency;

3. The date each request was received by the applicable agency;

4. The date of such agency’s acknowledgment of receipt of the request;

5. The date of the expected response as provided in the acknowledgment;

6. The number of extensions of time to respond indicated by the applicable agency to date;

7. The date of any determination made in response to the request;

8. Whether the request was granted in whole, granted in part and denied in part, or denied in whole;

9. If the request was denied in whole or in part, which specific exemptions under subdivision 2 of section 87 of the public officers law were cited, if any;

10. If the request was denied in whole or in part, whether the agency determined there were no responsive records;

11. The date of filing for any appeal of the final response;

12. The status of any appeal;

13. If an appeal was denied in whole or in part, which specific exemptions under subdivision 2 of section 87 of the public officers law were cited, if any;

14. The total dollar amount of all fees collected from the freedom of information law requestor;

15. How many records were produced, if any;

16. Whether the request was subject to a proceeding filed under article 78 of the civil practice law and rules, and if so, the result of such proceeding and the date of the final judgment;

17. The amount of attorney’s fees assessed by the court to be paid by the agency, if any, pursuant to any related proceeding under article 78 of the civil practice law and rules;

18. The date of any appeal of a judgment of a proceeding filed under article 78 of the civil practice law and rules and the result of such appeal; and

19. A downloadable copy of the records released for the request, in a machine readable format if one exists.

c. The portal developed and maintained pursuant to subdivision b of this section shall allow:

1. Agencies to receive and respond to requests for records from within the portal;

2. Agencies to upload digital files containing requested records in multiple formats, including open and machine-readable formats;

3. Agencies and the public to track the progress of each request;

4. Members of the public to file requests on the portal developed and maintained pursuant to this section;

5. For the full text search of the content of all requests on the portal developed and maintained pursuant to this section as well as the ability to filter search results by any of the categories described in subdivision b of this section;

 6. For the full text search of all machine-readable records made available in response to a request on the portal developed and maintained pursuant to this section;

7. For access to electronic copies of all records, regardless of form or format, sent in response to a request on the portal developed and maintained pursuant to this section.

8. For access to the data within the site through an application programming interface;

9. For any person to request and receive automated notifications of any determination or other action involving information required to be reported on the portal relating to any request on such portal;

10. For any person to access a directory, which shall be prominently displayed on the portal, that includes the name, title, and contact information for each records access officer and records access appeals officer at each agency; and

11. For any person to access statistics on requests made through the portal developed and maintained pursuant to this section, disaggregated by agency, including the aggregate number of monthly, yearly, and year-to-date requests received, number of requests for which some or all of such request is outstanding, number of requests for which some or all of the request has been outstanding for more than 30 business days, number of requests the agency granted in whole, number of requests the agency denied in whole, number of requests the agency granted in part and denied in part, and average resolution time for requests. Such statistics shall be updated on a monthly basis.

d. The information required to be posted on the portal pursuant to paragraphs 1 through 18 of subdivision b of this section shall be posted with respect to each request as soon as practicable, but in no case more than 10 business days after the occurrence of any determination regarding the release of records and any other action involving information required to be reported on such portal relating to a request. Information published pursuant to paragraph 19 of subdivision b of this section shall be posted 14 days after being made available to the requestor.

f. The website of every agency shall include a link to the portal developed and maintained pursuant to subdivision b of this section.

g. Upon receipt of any request by means other than the portal, the receiving agency shall enter the request into the portal, and shall track the progress of such request as required by subdivision c of this section.

h. The department, in consultation with the mayor’s office of operations and as part of the mayor’s management report as required by section 12, shall develop performance guidelines in connection with the statistical information required to be made available pursuant to paragraph 11 of  subdivision c of this section. The department shall hold a hearing on the subject of such performance guidelines at which members of the public may provide comments and feedback. The department shall finalize such guidelines after considering public comments and feedback.

i. At a minimum of every 6 months, the department shall distribute information to agency freedom of information law officers on updates to the portal and best practices for responding to freedom of information law requests.    

j. Within 90 days of the enactment of this local law, the department shall submit an implementation plan to the mayor and the speaker of the council. The plan shall describe the steps necessary to implement the requirements of this local law, and the standards for the tracking of, and filing of, requests and responses to such requests.

§ 2. This local law shall take effect 1 year after it becomes law.

EH

LS #7663/17600

3/11/2025 10:00 AM