Industry articles

Editorial: Fixing Government Data Must Come Before AI Innovation

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A recent editorial piece from Think.Digital Partners provides an important wake-up call regarding digital transformation and AI integration in the public sector.The article explains that AI in government can genuinely improve efficiency and service delivery, but only if agencies fix a foundational “content sprawl” problem first. Government organizations hold huge volumes of unstructured information—emails, PDFs, scanned forms, handwritten notes, and decades-old case files—spread across many repositories. This makes it hard for staff to find the right information, confirm it’s current and accurate, and gather the supporting context needed to make decisions. The result is wasted time, slower processes, and increased administrative burden.

The article highlights the core misunderstanding of viewing document storage/repositories as the main issue. Storage isn’t the problem; inconsistent governance, duplication, poor metadata, unmanaged sensitivity, and fragmentation across systems are. Without an AI-ready content foundation, AI tools will produce unreliable or non-compliant outputs—turning “automation” into amplified inefficiency and creating reputational/regulatory risk.

For a deeper analysis, read the full article here.

Ransomware Can Hold Your Records “Hostage”

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In another unfortunate trend for Ohio in 2024, Wood County had experienced a ransomware attack that has prevented them from accessing their electronic records management system. As seen in the article found here, while the attack is not impacting public services, the county is resorting to using pen and paper to record emergency calls as well as preventing them from accessing historical police records.

Just like water or a fire damaging paper records, your electronic records are vulnerable to disasters and disruptions to business like these cyberattacks. There are several things your office should keep in mind:

  1. Understand where your records are on your network as well as who has permission to those files. ARMA International has a great article on defining data maps found here. This will also help identify where your vital records are, those records integral to your business operations and should be recovered quickly.
  2. Have your IT routinely backup your electronic records as well as run updates to system software/antiviruses/network firewalls.
  3. Provide mandatory cybersecurity training to your office staff to educate them on identifying fraudulent requests and the steps to report on them.
  4. Clean up electronic records that have met their applicable records retention schedules and are no longer needed. The less files there are on your network, the less files that could be potentially stolen from your office.
  5. Finally, establish continuity of operations plan (COOP) in place to define the policies and procedures to respond to an emergency or disaster. Have a COOP plan in place will allow a swifter restart of your operations. FEMA has a brief brochure describing a COOP plan found here.

Re-Evaluating a Public Record

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A recent ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court concerning email distribution lists for a township newsletter helped define a “public record” for something simple as a mailing list. Per the recent article from Court News Ohio found here, there were some back-and-forth disputes concerning a 2022 public records request for the township newsletter email distribution list. The requester originally had his request denied by the township, but he argued that the list is a public record and contained no exempted information as found in ORC 149.43. While the township claimed the list did not document the activities of the office and was developed/maintained by a vendor, in Hicks v. Union Township, the Supreme Court agreed that the list was a public record per the three elements of a public record as defined in ORC 149.011(G). Remember, a public record is:

  • “Any document, device, or item, regardless of physical form or characteristic, including an electronic record as defined in section 1306.01 of the Revised Code”,
  • “Created or received by or coming under the jurisdiction of any public office of the state or its political subdivisions”,
  • And “serves to document the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the office”.

As always, when working with public records requests, it is important to have your office’s legal counsel review the request, the responsive records, and the response sent.  The case can be found here: Hicks v. Union Twp. Clermont Cty. Bd. of Trustees.