On June, 2024, the Office of Open Records issued a determination in the matter of Frank Curry and FOIA Buddy v. South Western School District that a request made via the FOIA Buddy website was properly denied as an anonymous request.
School entities have been receiving Right To Know Law (RTKL) requests in recent months that were made through the FOIA Buddy website.
The broad nature of the requests, utilization of two names repeatedly for different requests, and provision of only a PO Box mailing address made many schools skeptical about the legitimacy of the requests.
In May, OOR issued an alert in response to inquiries from many agencies about a FOIA Buddy request for records related to IT matters. The alert referenced OOR’s previous decisions regarding anonymous requests and referred agencies to their solicitors to resolve any safety concerns regarding the requests.
RTKL grants public agencies discretion whether to respond to anonymous requests. A “qualified requester” is a person (including a corporate entity) that is a legal resident of the United States.
In the Curry case, the school district denied the request unless and until the requester provided documentation that he was a qualified requester. Interestingly, the requester did not provide a position statement or other information in support of the appeal.
The District, on the other hand, provided detailed information about its attempts to determine whether Frank Curry is a real person and/or a resident of the United States.
The District’s solicitor, Christopher Harris, created an account with FOIA Buddy and documented the steps to issue a RTKL request via that platform.
The site offers an option to issue an anonymous request. The solicitor pursued that option, which resulted in identification of the solicitor as “Frank Curry” and reference to a PO Box and FOIA Buddy domain email address.
In contrast, when the solicitor did not select the anonymous option, his request was submitted to the District with reference to his name and actual contact information.
Bottom Line for Schools
As a result of the careful research undertaken by the South Western School District solicitor, agencies now have information to assist in more efficient handling of anonymous requests, whether coming through the FOIA Buddy platform or some other source.
It’s still not clear who initiated the appeal, as no name other than Frank Curry appears in the decision.
In this case, OOR did not address the substance of the request, but denied the appeal because the request was submitted anonymously.
