FOI, RTI & information access

Find and produce responsive records when requests arrive.

When a request names social media, the search should not depend on screenshots, memory or asking every account owner what they posted. Brolly keeps your connected accounts in one searchable archive, so information-access officers find responsive records with their comments, edits and context, then review and produce on their own terms.

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The job

What this team is accountable for.

When a request names your organisation’s social media, four responsibilities land on the information-access team.

Intake

Intake and scoping

Read the request, clarify it with the applicant where the legislation allows, and translate it into something searchable: a date window, the accounts involved and the topics named.

Search

Search across teams and channels

Responsive records live wherever the organisation posts, across departments, account owners and platforms. The officer has to find them without knowing in advance which channel holds what.

Review

Review with counsel

Work through the candidate set with legal: what is within scope, what is exempt, what needs redaction. These judgments belong to the officer and counsel, not to any tool.

Produce

Production on the statutory clock

Deliver the release within the timeframes your legislation sets, then log what was produced, to whom and when, so the office can answer for the response later.

The problem

Where the current process breaks.

Most information-access teams inherit social media as an afterthought: no archive, no search, and a request already on the clock.

Reconstruction

Asking comms to rebuild threads

Without an archive, finding records means asking the communications team to remember what was posted, when, and what people said back. Recollection is not a record.

Deletions

Deleted posts discovered late

A post removed months ago can still be within scope. Discovering mid-response that content is gone from the platform leaves the officer explaining an absence instead of reviewing a record.

Screenshots

Screenshots without metadata

A screenshot has no timestamps beyond what is visible, no capture history and no checksums. It shows a page, not a record, and it invites the questions it cannot answer.

Hunting

Per-platform searching

Native platform tools each search one account, one platform, one way. A request that spans channels turns into a separate hunt on every platform, repeated for every keyword.

With Brolly

A better operating workflow.

One archive of your connected accounts, searched the way requests are written, reviewed in context and exported for scrutiny.

Find

Search the archive the way the request is worded.

Requests arrive as dates, topics and account names. Search the same way: set the date range, pick the channels and authors, then narrow by keyword until the candidate set matches the scope of the request. No per-platform hunting, no asking around.

  • Date-range filters that match the request window
  • Channel and author filters across your connected accounts
  • Keyword search across posts, comments and replies
Review

Review posts with their comments, edits and deletions.

A post on its own is half the story. Brolly keeps supported posts together with their comments and replies, and keeps captured edits and deletions from connected accounts with timestamps, so you and counsel review the conversation the applicant asked about, including versions that no longer appear on the platform.

  • Conversation context kept with every captured record
  • Captured edits and deletions included, with timestamps
  • Review before release: scope calls made on whole records
Produce

Export a package built for scrutiny.

Export the responsive set in PDF, CSV, HTML or JSON with its available metadata, digital checksums and an audit history of the export itself, designed to support evidentiary review. Exemption, redaction and release decisions stay where they belong: with the officer and counsel.

  • PDF, CSV, HTML and JSON export formats
  • Digital checksums on exports; metadata and audit history on records
  • Your decisions preserved: Brolly never decides what gets released
Go deeper

Relevant solutions.

The role connects to two solutions and to the legislation of your jurisdiction.

Requests

FOI & RTI requests

The response workflow end to end: find the responsive records, review them in context, export a package built for evidentiary review.

See the requests workflow
Retention

Social media recordkeeping

Requests are the moment of truth; retention is the everyday obligation. How organisations keep social media records under their schedules, long before anyone asks.

See recordkeeping
Your jurisdiction

Jurisdiction requirements

Records acts, information-access laws and records authorities vary by jurisdiction. Our government hub covers every Australian jurisdiction and New Zealand.

Open the legislation map
The handoffs

Working with other teams.

An information-access response is a relay. With a shared archive, each team runs its own leg without borrowing anyone else’s memory.

Communications

Comms confirms context

The communications team knows why a post was written and what it was responding to. With the record already captured, they confirm context instead of reconstructing threads from recollection.

Legal

Counsel clears the release

Legal reviews the candidate set with comments, captured edits and deletions in front of them, and makes the exemption and redaction calls your legislation assigns to your office.

IT

IT stays out of the critical path

Accounts are connected once. When a request lands there is no server pull, no ticket queue and no engineer between the officer and the search.

Straight answers

Asked by information-access officers on the clock.

Do deleted posts fall within scope of a request?
They can be. Depending on the legislation and retention authority that applies, content may remain within scope of a request even after it is edited or removed from the live platform. How scope is defined for your organisation is a matter for your legislation and your records program. Brolly keeps captured versions of supported posts, comments, edits and deletions from your connected accounts, so you can review them even after they no longer appear on the page.
How fast can we search when a request arrives?
Searching is the fast part: filter the archive by date range, channel, author and keyword and you have a candidate set the same day the request lands, instead of after days of screenshot hunting. That speed does not set the pace of the whole response. Exemption and redaction decisions are yours to make with counsel, and statutory timeframes come from the legislation that applies to you. Our jurisdiction guides cover the framework for your organisation.
Who decides what is exempt or gets redacted?
You do. Brolly helps you find and review the candidate set; it does not decide exemptions, apply redactions or release records. Those judgments stay with the information-access officer and counsel, under the legislation that applies to your organisation. Exports keep the surrounding context, including comments and captured edit history, so reviewers make those calls with the whole record in front of them.
Which laws does this workflow cover?
Whichever act applies to you: freedom of information in the Commonwealth and most states, Right to Information in Queensland and Tasmania, GIPA in New South Wales, and the OIA and LGOIMA in New Zealand. The working steps are the same under each: find the responsive records, review them with counsel, produce and log the release. For the framework that applies to your organisation, start with the legislation map on our government hub.
Do we still need screenshots?
Not for content from your connected accounts. Supported posts, comments, edits and deletions from connected accounts are captured with their available metadata and audit history, and exports carry digital checksums. A screenshot shows what a page looked like to one person at one moment; it carries no metadata, no capture history and no record of what changed afterward, which is exactly what reviewers and applicants ask about.

Start the next request with a search.

Connect your accounts in minutes, and the next request that names social media begins in the archive instead of a screenshot folder.