Every council page, from the main account to the library, the pool and the mayor’s official page, creates posts, comments and messages that can fall within your state records act and be reached by FOI, GIPA or RTI. Brolly captures them in real time, so the record is ready before the request arrives.
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Councils that use Brolly
You already know posts made in the course of council business can be records. Records acts do not stop at the post itself. Here is what an FOI, GIPA or RTI request can reach.
Every official post on every council page, including scheduled and boosted content.
Residents’ comments and council replies. The two-way conversation can be part of the record.
Changed a post? The original wording can still be a record. Brolly keeps both versions.
Deleted comments and removed posts can still be reached by an FOI, GIPA or RTI request.
When a post shares a link, Brolly captures a screenshot of the destination page, so the full message keeps its context.
Shared media, live streams and stories. Attachments travel with the record.
Messages to and from official accounts, where the platform provides them.
Timestamps, authorship, version history and checksums. What makes a record reliable.
Each state and territory has a records act that reaches digital channels, and a retention and disposal authority that sets how long council records are kept. Social media posts, comments and messages created in the course of council business can sit under both. Your archives authority publishes guidance; our state pages name it.
An FOI request in most states, GIPA in New South Wales, RTI in Queensland and Tasmania, LGOIMA in New Zealand: each can reach social media, including comments and content that was later edited or deleted. A screenshot taken last month does not show what the thread looks like now.
Page owners can be answerable for third-party comments on their pages, a principle the High Court confirmed in the Voller matter. Councils need to be able to act on harmful comments quickly, and to show afterwards what was hidden, when and why.
The records act, the access regime, the archives authority and the questions councils ask, for every state, territory and New Zealand. Pick yours on the map.
Brolly connects to Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, YouTube, LinkedIn and TikTok through the platforms’ own APIs. Posts, comments, replies, reactions, edits, deletions and media are captured as they happen, each with its metadata, timestamps and a digital checksum that preserves chain of custody.
Kerbside collection runs one day late this week after Monday’s public holiday.
Does that include green waste pickup on our street?
Both versions kept, with timestamps and checksums.
Search by name, keyword, date or page across every channel at once. Review the whole conversation, including what was edited or deleted, and export a response-ready package with metadata and checksums attached. Scheduled monthly exports can land with the records team automatically.
Election periods put extra weight on what goes out from council pages. Tags and saved searches keep recurring topics in view as they are captured, and the archive holds the full chronology, originals, edits and deletions included, if a post is questioned later.
Road upgrade works begin next month on Station Street.
Will this be finished before election day?
Both versions kept, with timestamps and checksums.
Comms posts, records answers, governance signs off. Each gets the part of Brolly they need, with role-based access and nothing to chase.
Keeps posting from the tools they already use, including Hootsuite. Sees harmful comments hidden by Protect, with the reason logged, and never takes another screenshot for the records team. The archive doubles as a searchable history: explore past community responses and see how earlier messages were communicated before writing the next one.
Searches every page at once by name, keyword and date, reviews the whole thread as it happened, and exports a response-ready package with metadata and checksums for the FOI, GIPA or RTI officer.
Gets an answer for the auditor, the Ombudsman and the councillor who asks whether the page is covered. ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified, CSA STAR registered, data stored in Australia.
“We have no control over what Facebook does with our page, or our messages. They could close our page down for some reason and we’d lose everything. We appreciate the comfort of knowing that Brolly has us covered.”
“Before Brolly, if a post had any additional comments or edits after the initial screenshot, we weren’t seeing or capturing that. Now, we get everything.”
More council stories: City of Kalamunda, Cairns Regional Council, Shire of Harvey, Shire of Exmouth and all case studies.
“All public records, including digital records such as social media interactions, conversations within messaging applications and text messages, are subject to legislation and legal processes such as discovery and subpoena.”
Council records: a guideline for mayors, councillors, CEOs and council employees, Crime and Corruption Commission Queensland
Every plan includes unlimited accounts and users, so the library, the leisure centre, the visitor centre and the disaster dashboard are all covered at no extra cost. Councillors’ official accounts go into their own Brolly groups: each councillor manages their own group, council keeps oversight and exports, and capture stops at the end of a term while the records stay.
Your data is stored on AWS cloud servers located in Australia. Brolly Australasia Pty Ltd is ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified and CSA STAR registered, with controls aligned to the Australian ISM and the ASD Essential Eight, and an Australian support team who know what a GIPA request and a caretaker period are.
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