It happens on the same records your records and FOIA officers already work. Automatic, systematic, mandatory, and discretionary review all run on one engine, the same platform behind RMA iQ and FOIA Workbench. One vendor, one ATO, and one audit trail beneath the record, no matter which workflow touches it next.
A 1995 record was a memo, a cable, a report. A 2025 record is also an email thread with sixteen replies, a Teams chat with three attachments, a recorded video meeting, a chat-based decision log. The review obligation applies to all of it, and the tooling for most of it doesn't exist outside a modern records platform.
Discretionary declassification has moved from a quiet program track to a recurring headline. Presidential actions, public-interest releases, and congressional attention have raised the visibility of every release decision, and with it the bar on what a defensible release looks like.
The records subject to review keep accumulating year over year. The pool of cleared SMEs who can review them does not scale at the same rate. The arithmetic forces a choice: cut corners on review, or build a platform that lets cleared SMEs spend their time on the work only they can do.
Declassification iQ is built for the job as it is today: modern records, modern formats.
The mode picks the entry door. The engine runs the review, the same way every time, with the same audit trail underneath.
Each mode answers a different legal trigger, and runs as its own workflow on one shared engine.
Declassification iQ keeps the ADR queue current. Records crossing the 25-year threshold under EO 13526 enter the queue automatically from classification-date metadata. Full-text and metadata scanning surface records containing exemption-eligible terms drawn from the agency's approved declassification guide. The platform tasks cleared SMEs to review the flagged set, presents the exemption criteria inline, and routes decisions through the review manager. Records exempted at 25 years re-enter the queue at 50, and again at 75.
SDR is the continuous obligation. Permanent records of historical value are reviewed on the program schedule the agency sets. Declassification iQ sorts the population by permanent value and suitability indicators, aggregates the candidates into collaborative review queues, and presents them to multiple stakeholders inside one interface. Decisions (full release, partial release with redaction, or continued classification), are recorded against each record with the supporting reasoning attached.
MDR begins with a public request, and the statutory response window opens the moment the request is perfected. Declassification iQ verifies the request, retrieves responsive records, presents them to the review team with redaction tooling and the exemption catalog inline, and routes the response to the requester through the public portal. For partial denials, the redaction tool obscures national security information and attaches the exemption code without moving the record.
If a response is denied and escalated to the Information Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), the application assigns the appeal a case number and tracks its progress against the public portal.
Discretionary declassification is the track for cases where an agency head determines that public interest in declassification outweighs the need for continued protection. EO 13526 § 3.1(d) preserves this authority for agency heads with original classification authority. Recent presidential actions and high-profile releases have raised the visibility of every discretionary decision. The audit trail for a discretionary release is no longer a back-office artifact; it's the document of record when the release becomes public.
Declassification iQ supports the discretionary track with the same redaction tools, exemption catalog, and audit infrastructure as the other three modes. Privileged users with discretionary authority retrieve, review, and release the records in question. The decision and its basis attach to the record. The audit log marks the action as discretionary rather than ADR or MDR, because the legal basis differs and the reporting obligations differ.
Seven capability domains, available to every mode. The mode decides which workflow uses which capability; the engine guarantees the same behavior across the whole program.
One declassification queue. Records enter by ADR threshold, SDR enrollment, MDR request, or discretionary action. Status, assignee, and deadline track per record.
Cleared SMEs receive tasking carrying the record, the exemption catalog for the mode, the agency's declassification guide, and the deadline. SME identity attaches to every decision.
Scanning across full text and structured metadata identifies sensitive content before human review. Agency-configurable pattern libraries. Runs at ingest, on demand, and on schedule.
Every continued-classification decision carries an exemption code. The exemption index assembles automatically from the codes applied during review, supporting ISOO reporting and NARA audit.
The platform recognizes classification banner markings on document headers and footers. During release preparation, the redaction tool can erase or modify those markings as part of the release rendering.
Records eligible for referral to another agency or the National Declassification Center route through the referral mechanism. Outbound notifications, response tracking, and accepted or declined status carry on the record.
On release, the platform assembles the NARA accession package: PDF/A or TIFF of the released document, an XML metadata file, a certification letter, and associated exemption information. Ready for transfer at the moment of release.
Most agencies buy records management, FOIA processing, and declassification review as three procurements from three vendors, with three audit trails to reconcile by hand when the same record shows up in all three. Feith runs all three on one workbench, with one engine beneath it.
The same record under all three workflows generates one continuous audit trail. The records officer's lifecycle decisions, the FOIA officer's release decisions, and the declassification manager's classification decisions all attach to the record in chronological order. There's no reconciliation across audit trails, because there's only one.
Roles, clearances, and access controls are defined once, at the platform level. A cleared SME who can review a classified record in declassification doesn't need separate provisioning to handle the same record under an MDR or FOIA response. The access decision belongs to the platform, shared across every application.
Classifications, supplemental markings, and CUI categories live in one framework across all three workflows. A record marked under RMA iQ at capture is marked the same way when it enters the FOIA workflow or the declassification queue. Nothing has to be reconciled across systems.
The agency buys one platform, holds one vendor relationship, and runs one ATO for the integrated workbench. The reduction in procurement, ATO, and operations overhead is the buyer's tangible benefit, and the CIO is usually the first to notice it.
AI works in specific places inside the workflow, each with a defined input and a defined output. The decision to declassify, redact, or maintain stays with the cleared SME. The AI's job is to surface what would otherwise be missed and keep the queue moving.
The classification system was designed around documents. The records flowing through agencies today are conversations, recordings, and chat threads with mixed authorship and shifting context. Declassifying them takes tooling that understands the format.
An email thread with sixteen replies is one conversation, not sixteen records. Declassification iQ ingests threads as composite records, preserves the participant list, and routes the thread to review with full context intact. Quote-history nesting and attachment lineage are preserved.
Teams, Slack, and similar platforms produce transcripts where the speaker, the channel, and the time matter as much as the message body. The platform ingests chat exports with full participant metadata and presents the transcript to the reviewer in readable form rather than raw JSON.
Recorded meeting content carries audio, video, transcript, and chat as a bundled record. Declassification iQ supports transcript-anchored review: the reviewer reads the transcript while the corresponding video segment plays back from the same interface. Video redaction marks the frames or audio segments to obscure before release rendering.
Modern records routinely cross classification levels within one document. A thread that started Unclassified and was answered with Classified content is the common case, not the edge case. The platform handles the thread as a single record, preserves the classification of each contribution, and treats the highest classification present as the binding marking.
The procurement question is rarely "which platform handles ADR"; most do. It's what happens when a single record has to move across review modes, across statutory frameworks, and across the records and FOIA workflows the same officer owns. These five surface the real differences.
The stitched-module answer forces the agency to reconcile audit trails, access models, and exemption catalogs across modules. The single-engine answer does not. Ask to see the same record handled in two different modes inside the same demo session.
A platform that lets AI take any action without a corresponding human decision is unacceptable for this work. Ask the vendor to describe exactly what the AI does and does not do, and to show the audit log of an AI action confirmed (or rejected) by a named human reviewer.
Many records under declassification review are also subject to FOIA requests and records-management lifecycle obligations. Ask whether the same record can be worked under all three workflows in one platform, or whether the agency has to integrate three separate vendor systems to make that happen.
NARA accession is the end-state of most declassification programs. Ask to see the actual accession package the platform produces: the PDF/A or TIFF rendering, the XML metadata file, the certification letter, and the exemption attachment. If any element has to be assembled manually outside the platform, the platform isn't finished.
The records crossing the 25-year threshold today are mostly documents. The records crossing it ten years from now mostly won't be. Ask whether the platform handles email threads as composite records, chat transcripts with participant context, and recorded meeting content. If the answer is "we'll support that in a future release," the answer is no.
The classified national security information framework. The platform supports the automatic, systematic, mandatory, and discretionary review obligations the order establishes, including the 25, 50, and 75-year thresholds, the exemption framework, and the referral and accession obligations.
DoD Information Security Program, the DoD implementation of the classified information program. The platform aligns with the volumes governing declassification, downgrading, and release.
The ISOO directive: the Information Security Oversight Office implementing directive for EO 13526. The platform supports the reporting, audit, and exemption-index obligations it establishes.
National Archives accession standards for transferred records. The platform produces the PDF/A or TIFF rendering, the XML metadata file, the certification letter, and the exemption attachment as one transferable package.
Engagements are phased: a typical first phase covers one review mode and one component, with the others brought online later. The accreditation path drives the timeline more than the install. Air-gapped deployments need coordination with the accrediting authority before the engagement begins.
For agencies running declassification on unclassified-but-sensitive workloads. FedRAMP Moderate authorized, on AWS GovCloud or Azure for Government. Single-tenancy available.
For agencies running declassification on classified workloads up to IL-6. The same application, deployed inside the agency's enclave. NIPR, SIPR, and JWICS supported, on pre-STIGed systems. The deployment carries its own ATO.
For agencies with air-gapped or special-purpose requirements. The application supports air-gapped operation with metadata-only outbound paths. Coordination with the accrediting authority is required at the start of every engagement.
A 30-minute scoping call covers your current declassification volume, your mode mix (ADR, SDR, MDR, Discretionary), the networks you operate on, and what a phased rollout looks like. It's a working conversation with a cleared engagement lead.
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A cleared engagement lead will reach out within one business day to schedule your 30-minute scoping call.
