What happened
Albuquerque's City Clerk's office processed over 16,000 public records requests last year, a 300% increase since 2017, with City Clerk Ethan Watson attributing the surge to artificial intelligence tools. These AI tools are suspected of scraping news and formatting requests, often for police body camera footage, for "content farming" schemes. Out-of-state and international requests, including hundreds from Pakistan, constitute 47.1% of the total and consume 59% of staff time, contributing to a current backlog of 1,807 requests.
Why it matters
AI-driven public records requests strain municipal resources, creating significant operational backlogs for city clerks. Procurement teams face increased data processing and redaction costs, especially for time-intensive APD records (71% of Q1 requests). Current public records laws, like New Mexico's IPRA, mandate first-come, first-served processing, preventing prioritisation of local needs and diverting staff time to commercial or "weaponized" requests. This necessitates re-evaluating data access policies.
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