This is a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) non-binding opinion issued by the Illinois Attorney General Public Access Counselor in response to a request for review submitted by the law firm Mandell Menkes on behalf of SpotCrime.
In 2015, SpotCrime began submitting daily FOIA requests to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office seeking crime data. The Sheriff’s Office said they could produce data on a monthly basis, but SpotCrime persisted with daily requests. The Sheriff’s Office labeled SpotCrime as a commercial requester and a recurrent requester. SpotCrime believed those designations were improper, claiming that they counted as news media since the data was ultimately disseminated to the public.
The PAC determined that SpotCrime did not qualify as news media for the purposes of FOIA because they primarily compiled data and a primary reason for doing so was the sell the data to their subscribers, and that SpotCrime did not engage in creating original journalistic content. The PAC recognized that the dissemination of crime data could be a component of news media activities, but engaging in that one activity alone does not determine news media status. The PAC also determined that the Sheriff’s Office had properly designated SpotCrime as a commercial requester.
SpotCrime v Cook County Sheriff’s Office FOIA Request for Review- 2015 PAC 34653