The purpose of FIPS+ is to implement electronic procedures within a government agency for compliance with the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552, and the Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. 552a.  These acts require every Federal government agency to respond in a timely fashion to requests for federal records gathered by that agency.  FIPS+ electronically stores, retrieves, redacts, and prints documents for delivery to FOIA requesters via paper or CD. The scope of FIPS+ includes all of the clerical and legal processing of FOIA and Privacy Act requests received by a government agency.  FIPS+ is designed to be easily configurable; graphical user Interface (GUI) elements, letter content and management reports can quickly be configured to portray each unique agency.

 

IMC built the newest improvements to FIPS+ on the already successful system. The interactive retention schedule enables lead data administrative users to pro-actively review the cases selected for deletion in accordance with the configured retention schedule parameters detailing the duration timeline for each type of FOIA or Privacy Act case. A significant addition to the user interface includes the capability to review all the major case attribute data at a glance. IMC undertook a review of the system’s major queries and optimized these queries to improve user response times throughout case processing.   The enhanced search capabilities address a user requested option to search for specific organizations that have submitted FOIA requests for consideration.

 

IMC developed the original FOIA/PA Information Processing system (FIPS) for the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in the late 1990s. During the past thirteen years, IMC has built upon the basic requirements to enable processing of more than 100,000 FOIA and PA requests annually by the now US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  During FY 2011, using the legacy FIPS tool, USCIS processed the largest number of FOIA requests of any Federal department or agency. FIPS+ successfully builds upon this legacy of close work with the government FOIA management and staff responsible for responding to the highest FOIA workload in the United States. IMC continues to develop and enhance FIPS+ by including additional comprehensive and targeted features to enable more effective and efficient FOIA processing.