Client Profile
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is the environmental agency for the state. The TCEQ strives to protect the state’s human and natural resources consistent with sustainable economic development. The agency’s goal is to maintain and conserve clean air, clean water, and the safe management of waste.
Challenges
- Protecting Personal Identifiable Information (PII) data while increasing the availability of records to the public.
- Tracking Workflow and volumes of PII present within agency records. Addressing questions related to identifying PII and errors that occur while completing the assessment.
- Improving reporting for the DRR workflow, as the agency periodically increases DRR through Special Projects.
Business Situation
Under Texas law, each person is entitled to complete information about the affairs of government and the official acts of public officials and employees at all times, unless otherwise expressly provided by law.
The TCEQ is committed to upholding the Public Information Act (PIA) and to ensuring public access to its records.
In 2012, TCEQ and PacoTech began the process of transforming all paper to electronic documents. A plan was initiated to digitize records and publish the agency’s records through an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system. Thus, giving the public a quicker method to access the agency’s records. Texas Government Code 2054 requires that agencies handling sensitive personal information, confidential information, or individually identifiable information submit a biennial data security plan. Thus, requiring the agency to identify and protect PII within agency records.
To create a plan to protect PII, the agency requested a risk assessment plan from PacoTech to identify records that contained PII. PacoTech identified the records series as the focal point for the next steps to publishing protected documents through a redaction function.
Requirements Included:
- Oversee the review of electronic documents entering the ECM for PII information. Ensure that 90% of reviewed records are published to the Oracle WCC within 30 days of completed review and redaction.
- Map business processes that include:
- Documenting work processes for completing redaction within the WCC.
- Maintain a listing of what information/metadata is considered PII by the agency.
Solution
By 2016, the digitization of records was well established for the agency. With the high volume of incoming agency records the program areas requested assistance to complete the redaction efforts for the agency records. Therefore, the development of a work plan to redact PII data with various processes, procedures and guidelines was created to address the immediate need to produce protected (redacted) records. This solution was in place for over a year before the agency implemented a new ECM in 2019; Oracle Web Center Content (WCC). PacoTech management consulted with the agency on the development of the WCC workflow to implement a redaction process to review and redact PII more efficiently. During the development of the WCC interface, PacoTech played a critical role in communicating the issues of the WCC redaction module and assisted in testing a solution that decreased the number of errors experienced by end users. This resulted in the development of the Document Review and Redaction (DRR) department. The main purpose of this workgroup is to train dedicated personnel on redacting PII and becoming familiar with agency documents. Once the data is redacted with the appropriate classification, the data is published for public access.
A support database was developed through MS Access to track workgroup and staff metrics to meet agency’s regulatory requirements for maintaining an electronic records management system (ERMS). The custom database allows staff to manage the incoming workflow more efficiently, log findings and document errors.
DRR continues to be conducted through a hybrid workflow that utilizes the WCC redaction module as well as a custom MS Access database created and maintained by PacoTech. Development of scripts improved identification of PII data during the document review process. Thus, protecting PII records and increasing the availability of records to the public.
To manage PII more efficiently and improve production, PacoTech has presented options for reducing the amount of interpretation required to identify public e-mails. This solution is currently under review by the agency.
An extensive quality control process was developed to ensure records are published with the most accurate information. An initial review of 10% of reviewed records is conducted to validate that the analysis was completed correctly. If any errors are identified, this percentage increases to 25%. Quality Control personnel will review up to 100% of the documents if the percentage of errors is more than 3%.
PacoTech will periodically review records that have been published through quality control to ensure redactions were applied correctly, and as a second validation from the initial QC.
Products and Services Used
- Oracle Web Center Content (WCC) – was created to manage the physical and electronic documents for the TCEQ.
- Oracle Web Center Content (WCC) Redaction Module
- Adobe Acrobat Professional
- Custom MS Access workflow & metrics to handle redaction.
- InSight Everywhere
- Central File Room On-line
Services Provided by Other Groups or Companies
- Metrics workflow developed with MS Access to track production and metrics
- InSight Everywhere
- Oracle WCC
- TEAM Informatics
90% Achievement
PacoTech consistently received Grade A on the Vendor Performance Report (VPR) for the entire contract term.
PacoTech has met or exceeded the agency’s expectation for Document Review and Redaction (DRR) every year and completed a large volume of imaging, even under circumstances outside of its control.
90% Positive Reaction
PacoTech has received positive feedback from TCEQ in the following areas.
- Exceptional customer service response
- Provided technical/training/set-up assistance when not required.
- Order or service completed satisfactorily.
Result
- FY19 to FY 22 – 420,878 records / 12,125,596 pages reviewed and published.
- Improved accuracy of records Reduced paper usage
- Improved efficiency and convenience Cost savings
- Improved protection of identity theft