FOIA-Safe Summarization Workflows

A federal employee can save themselves dozens of hours by summarizing inboxes, comment dockets, contract files, and meeting transcripts with AI. The same employee can also create a six-figure FOIA headache if they paste the wrong thing into the wrong tool. The goal of this lesson is to give you a workflow that captures the upside without creating the downside.

What you'll learn

• The basics of FOIA under 5 USC §552 and what counts as an "agency record"
• Which AI inputs and outputs are FOIA-able (short answer: most of them)
• Records management implications and how AI use intersects with retention schedules
• The hard rule: never paste classified or CUI data into a non-approved AI
• A summarization workflow that survives a FOIA request and an IG audit

FOIA basics in three minutes

The Freedom of Information Act (5 USC §552) requires federal agencies to disclose records on request unless one of nine statutory exemptions applies. The most relevant exemptions for AI work are:

• Exemption 1 — properly classified national defense or foreign policy information
• Exemption 4 — trade secrets and confidential commercial information
• Exemption 5 — pre-decisional, deliberative inter- and intra-agency communications (the deliberative process privilege)
• Exemption 6 — personnel and medical files where disclosure would be a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy
• Exemption 7 — records compiled for law enforcement purposes

"Agency record" is broad: emails, draft documents, calendars, instant messages, and yes, the prompt and the response inside an AI tool that you used for official work. The Federal Records Act (44 USC Chapter 31) and 36 CFR Part 1236 reinforce that records do not lose their character because they are stored in a chat interface.

What AI prompts and outputs actually are

Bo, here is the rule that catches most people: an AI prompt you typed at work and the response Claude returned are agency records if they were created or used in the conduct of agency business. They can be requested under FOIA. They are subject to records retention. They can be subpoenaed. They can be reviewed by your IG.

Practical implications:

• Do not type anything into Claude that you would not type into a Word document on your work laptop.
• Use only an enterprise AI instance whose audit logs your records officer can access. Consumer accounts are not auditable.
• Treat AI chat history like email — assume it persists, assume it is searchable, assume it could be produced.

The four-step FOIA-safe summarization workflow

Step 1 — classify the source material first

Before you do anything else, label every document in your batch with: classification level (Public / FOUO / CUI / classified), exemption flags (any Exemption 4 commercial info? Exemption 6 PII?), and retention status. If anything is classified or CUI, you stop and route it to a tool that is approved for that level. Do not proceed with mixed-classification batches in a tool you are not certain handles all of them.

Step 2 — redact before paste

For documents going into a tool approved for sensitive but unclassified work, redact PII (names, SSNs, dates of birth, contact info), confidential commercial info, and any draft pre-decisional language that should remain inside the agency. Even when the tool is approved, minimum-necessary handling reduces FOIA exposure.

Step 3 — structured summarization prompt

I am summarizing [N] documents for [purpose]. The documents are attached/pasted below.

Produce:
1. A 200-word executive summary in plain language
2. A bullet list of every distinct concrete fact, with the source document filename
   and page or paragraph reference next to each
3. A bullet list of every recommendation, decision, or commitment found, with source
4. A flagged list of: (a) any apparent PII you noticed, (b) any apparent commercial
   confidential markings, (c) any classification banners
5. Open questions the documents do not answer

RULES:
- Do not introduce facts that are not in the source documents
- If a claim is ambiguous, mark it [UNCERTAIN] and quote the original sentence
- Do not paraphrase classification banners or CUI markings — reproduce them verbatim
- If the documents appear to contain anything I should not have pasted here, say so.

Step 4 — preserve the working file

Save the prompt, the input filenames (not the input text if it was sensitive), and the output to your records-managed shared drive under the appropriate retention category. This is your audit trail. If a FOIA request later asks about this analysis, you have a clean record of what was done, when, with what tool.

The hard rule: never paste classified or CUI into a non-approved AI

This is non-negotiable. Pasting classified information into a system not approved for that level is a security incident under Executive Order 13526 and component-specific spillage policies. Pasting CUI into a system not approved for CUI is a violation of 32 CFR Part 2002 and your agency's CUI program. Both can end careers.

Federal compliance pitfalls

Homework

1. Pick one document collection you would like to summarize this week.
2. Run Step 1 (classify) and stop. If anything is CUI or above, identify the approved tool before proceeding.
3. Run Steps 2–4 and save the working file.
4. Email your records officer or FOIA officer the prompt and ask: "Is this workflow consistent with our retention policy?"