Requester Status

Requester Status: what the decisions show

This topic covers disputes over requester status under FOIA, including designation as a recurrent requester, denial of a request as an unduly burdensome repeated request under section 3(g), claims to news media status to avoid recurrent-requester treatment, and who counts as the same requester or person for counting purposes.

Across these decisions, the PAC has upheld recurrent-requester and repeated-request determinations where the request history and counting supported them, including where the same records had already been provided to the same requester. It has found violations where a public body combined requests from different people, applied the recurrent-requester provisions retroactively, lacked enough qualifying requests, miscalculated the threshold for a particular request, or used section 3(g) after the prior request was rejected on procedural grounds. News-media claims failed without sufficient proof.

At a glance: 16 documents from 2012 to 2026(2 binding opinions, 14 determination letters). Outcome: 6 found a violation (in whole or part), 7 found none.

Recurring issues

• Whether requests from different individuals, such as spouses or colleagues in the same organization, may be combined or treated as the same person for recurrent-requester or repeated-request purposes. (A village's classification of a requester as recurrent, Sheriff's office denial of a repeated FOIA request)
• Whether a requester qualifies as news media to avoid recurrent-requester or commercial-requester treatment. (Transit authority dispatch records and service policies, A data-aggregation website's classification for daily crime data requests, Cellular phone bills and credit card expenditures)
• When a second request for the same records may be denied as an unduly burdensome repeated request under section 3(g). (A school district's insurance policies and related records, An employee roster and job titles for an office location, Records on the Illinois Impact Incarceration Program)
• Whether the public body correctly counted qualifying requests, including retroactive counting and meeting the threshold for a specific request. (Retroactive application of recurrent requester status, A township's recurrent requester designation, A village's calculation of FOIA requests for recurrent requester status)
• Whether a requester may avoid recurrent-requester status by retroactively changing the stated identity or principal behind a prior request. (Amendment of requester identity to avoid recurrent status)

Practical points

• Document what was previously provided to the same requester before denying a new request as repeated under section 3(g).
• Count only qualifying requests by the same requester and do not apply recurrent-requester counting retroactively.
• Ask for and keep evidence of news-media status and news purpose when a requester claims an exemption from recurrent-requester treatment.

Summary drafted from the linked decisions and checked against them; read the decisions themselves before relying on it. Not legal advice.