The Department of Home Affairs has issued a request for information for a case management system to replace manual processes for the largest FOI workload in Australian government.

The department received 20,120 FOI requests in the 2024-25 financial year and assessed 2.9 million pages of documents, up from 2.1 million the previous year.

It quotes a report from the Financial Year 2021-22 when it handled 43% of all Commonwealth FOI requests. The nearest agency, Services Australia, received 14%

Current systems rely heavily on Excel spreadsheets and email-based workflows that are "inefficient, prone to error, and unsuitable for high-volume, time-sensitive work," according to tender documents.

The FOI section's existing system offers "very limited automation" while Privacy Operations manages cases entirely through Excel, a method that has proved "unreliable and unstable due to the volume of matter recording."

All document redaction is currently performed manually by officers, with no batch processing capacity available.

"The consequences of using an in-house solution which does not meet the business requirements will lead to increases in privacy breaches and to the FOI backlog," the tender states.

Privacy Operations clients are primarily internal departmental staff and Australian Border Force officers seeking support on privacy matters including complaints, data breaches and authorised disclosures to external enforcement bodies.

The requested solution must provide case management, online lodgement, automated workflows, multi-format redaction with three-stage version control, and integration with existing systems including TRIM/Content Manager, ICSE, Outlook and SAP.

The system must support 130 concurrent FOI users and 20 Privacy users, handle PROTECTED classification documents, and maintain response times under two seconds during peak usage.

Required redaction capabilities must cover PDFs, emails, Microsoft Office documents, audio files, video files and image formats.

The solution must integrate with departmental repositories and provide search and retrieval across all stored artefacts and metadata.

Secure file transfer features must include time-limited links, role-based access, encryption and comprehensive audit logging to meet compliance standards under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 and Privacy Act 1988.

The tender specifies browser compatibility with Internet Explorer, Edge, Chrome, Firefox and Safari, and WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility compliance.

Historical data accessibility is required, with Privacy Operations needing at least three years of data and FOI Operations requiring relevant historical records for case continuity.

The two-stage procurement process began with the request for information issued 15 September 2025. Only respondents submitting RFI responses will be considered for Stage 2, the formal request for tender.