Illinois
Illinois Public Records Laws: The Illinois FOIA (5 ILCS 140) Explained
Independently fact-checked against primary sources (last audited August 4, 2026). · Law checked current as of August 9, 2026. · 5 primary sources cited on this page. How we verify our legal content
Illinois calls its open-records law the Freedom of Information Act, the same name as the federal statute, but it is a separate state law codified at 5 ILCS 140/1 et seq. A public body generally has 5 business days to respond, the first 50 pages of standard copies are free, and denials can be appealed to a state office with power to issue a legally binding opinion.
Information last verified on 2026-08-04. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.
This page covers Illinois state law only. For requests to a federal agency such as the FBI, the Social Security Administration, or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, see our guide on how to file a FOIA request, and compare other states on the public records laws by state hub.
What Law Governs Public Records in Illinois
The Illinois Freedom of Information Act, 5 ILCS 140/1 et seq., governs access to records held by Illinois state agencies, counties, municipalities, school districts, park districts, public universities, and other public bodies. The Act starts from a presumption of openness: records in the possession of a public body are public unless a specific exemption applies, and the public body carries the burden of proving the exemption.
The shared name causes real confusion. Illinois FOIA is a state law. It does not reach federal agencies, and the federal FOIA does not reach Illinois agencies. If you want your FBI file, your Social Security earnings record, or your immigration A-file, you file under the federal statute with that agency. If you want a Chicago police report, a school district's contracts, or a village board's emails, you file under 5 ILCS 140.
Illinois FOIA also does not cover the courts. Court files and case records are administered by the circuit clerks and the Illinois Supreme Court's own access rules, not by the Freedom of Information Act.
Who Can File an Illinois FOIA Request
Any person may request records under Illinois FOIA. There is no citizenship requirement, no residency requirement, and no requirement that you live in the county or district whose records you want. Businesses, journalists, out-of-state researchers, and people who simply want a copy of their own file all use the same statute.
You also do not have to explain yourself, with two exceptions. Under 5 ILCS 140/3(c), a public body may not require a requester to specify the purpose of a request, except when it is determining whether the request is for a commercial purpose, or whether to grant a request for a fee waiver. Those are the only two carve-outs in the subsection, and both are narrow. Commercial requests get a different clock and a different fee schedule. A public-interest fee waiver under 5 ILCS 140/6(c) requires you to state your specific purpose anyway, so that second exception is one you trigger yourself by asking for the waiver.
That single exception is worth answering honestly. Misrepresenting a commercial request as a non-commercial one is treated as a violation of the Act, and it can cost you the free-page allowance and the faster deadline.
Illinois FOIA Deadlines
A public body must generally respond within 5 business days after it receives a written request. Responding means granting the request, denying it in writing with the specific exemption relied on, or asserting one of the statutory extensions. In the ordinary case the response and the production happen together, which makes Illinois faster on paper than most states.
The body may extend the deadline by up to 5 additional business days for one of seven reasons listed in 5 ILCS 140/3(e), such as records stored off site, a voluminous request, or a need to consult another agency. The extension has to be in writing, and it has to state the reason and the new date. Longer timelines are possible only by written agreement with you.
Two request categories run on a different clock. A request the body determines is for a commercial purpose gets 21 working days. A person the body has designated a recurrent requester gets a notice within 5 business days and a response within 21 business days.
A third track exists for size. Under 5 ILCS 140/3.6, a public body may designate a request voluminous, which triggers its own notice requirements, an extended response period, and the separate fee scale in 5 ILCS 140/6(a-5). You are entitled to narrow the request in response to that designation, and narrowing it is usually the right move.
If a public body simply misses the deadline and says nothing, the Act treats that silence as a denial, which opens your appeal rights immediately. A body in that position also may not charge fees for records it later produces. Those are the operative timelines as of August 2026.
What Illinois FOIA Requests Cost
Illinois has one of the more requester-friendly fee structures in the country, and readers who assume every state charges from page one are usually surprised.
- The first 50 pages of black-and-white, letter-size or legal-size copies are free to every requester, regardless of purpose.
- After the first 50 pages, the body may charge up to 15 cents per page for those standard copies.
- Color copies and non-standard sizes are billed at actual cost, not at the 15-cent cap.
Separate rules apply to electronic records, commercial-purpose requests and voluminous requests.
- For records delivered electronically, the body may charge only the actual cost of the recording medium, such as a disc or drive. The per-page paper schedule does not carry over to an email or a download.
- Commercial-purpose requests can carry search, retrieval, and redaction charges of up to $10 per hour beyond the first 8 hours of work, under 5 ILCS 140/6(f). That hourly charge is tied to commercial requests, not to requests from a designated recurrent requester.
- A request designated voluminous under 5 ILCS 140/3.6 runs on the separate fee scale in 5 ILCS 140/6(a-5), and the dollar thresholds depend on the file format. For voluminous electronic records delivered as PDFs, a public body may charge up to $20 for the first 80 megabytes of data, up to $40 for more than 80 but not more than 160 megabytes, and up to $100 for more than 160 megabytes. For voluminous electronic records not in PDF format, the thresholds are far lower: up to $20 for the first 2 megabytes, up to $40 for more than 2 but not more than 4 megabytes, and up to $100 for more than 4 megabytes.
Illinois does have a public-interest fee waiver, and it is written into the statute. Under 5 ILCS 140/6(c), documents shall be furnished without charge or at a reduced charge if the person requesting the documents states the specific purpose for the request and indicates that a waiver or reduction of the fee is in the public interest.
The Act defines that public interest rather than leaving it open. The waiver is in the public interest where the principal purpose of the request is to access and disseminate information regarding the health, safety and welfare or the legal rights of the general public, and is not for the principal purpose of personal or commercial benefit. The carve-out inside 6(c) is narrower than it is often described: it covers news media only. The subsection says that for its purposes, commercial benefit shall not apply to requests made by news media when the principal purpose of the request is to access and disseminate information regarding the health, safety, and welfare or the legal rights of the general public.
Non-profit, scientific, and academic organizations are protected by a different provision, and against a different term. Under 5 ILCS 140/2(c-10), requests by news media and by non-profit, scientific, or academic organizations are not treated as made for a commercial purpose when the principal purpose is the news, academic, scientific, or public-interest use the definition lists. Parallel exclusions appear in 5 ILCS 140/2(g) for recurrent requesters and 5 ILCS 140/2(h) for voluminous requests. Commercial purpose and 6(c)'s commercial benefit are separate tests, so those exclusions keep a non-profit or university off the 21-working-day commercial clock and its hourly fees without automatically deciding the fee-waiver question under 6(c).
Two things follow for a requester. You have to ask, and you have to say why: state the specific purpose in the request itself and state plainly that a waiver or reduction is in the public interest. And the public body sets the amount, since the statute directs it to furnish records without charge or at a reduced charge, leaving where inside that range to land in the body's hands. Between that waiver, the first-50-pages-free rule, and the electronic-delivery rule, an Illinois requester with a genuine public-interest purpose has more cost protection than most states offer.
The cheapest lever most requesters never pull is format. Asking for records in electronic form, delivered by email, frequently drops the bill to nothing.
How to File an Illinois FOIA Request
There is no central Illinois records portal. You file with the individual public body that holds the records, which means identifying the right agency first.
- Identify the correct public body. Each one designates a FOIA officer, and most publish that officer's name, address, and email on their website.
- Put the request in writing. Email is fine and is the usual method. A written request is what starts the 5-business-day clock.
- Describe the records with enough detail that the body can find them. Date ranges, department names, incident numbers, and contract numbers all help. FOIA obliges a body to produce existing records. It does not oblige it to answer questions or to create a document that does not exist.
- State the format you want. Ask for electronic delivery if you want to avoid copy charges.
- Say whether the request is for a commercial purpose, since the body is entitled to ask anyway.
- Keep the sent date and any acknowledgment. Your appeal rights run off those dates.
Our free FOIA request generator builds an Illinois-specific request letter with the statutory citation and deadline language filled in. Nothing you type into it is stored or transmitted.
Exemptions Under Illinois FOIA
The exemptions live mainly in 5 ILCS 140/7 and 140/7.5. Section 7 contains the general exemptions: personal information whose release would be a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, preliminary drafts and deliberative material, records relating to the adjudication of employee grievances, trade secrets and commercial information, certain security-related records, and records of active law-enforcement investigations where disclosure would interfere with a proceeding.
Section 7.5 is the exemption-by-cross-reference list. It exempts records that other Illinois statutes prohibit from disclosure, which is how a great deal of specialized material such as student records, medical information, and certain law-enforcement recordings stays outside FOIA's reach.
Exemptions apply to material, not to whole files. If a record contains exempt and non-exempt information, the public body must redact the exempt portion and release the rest, and it must tell you what it redacted and under which exemption.
Police Records and Body Camera Footage
Ordinary police reports in Illinois are requested under FOIA like any other record, subject to the law-enforcement exemptions in 5 ILCS 140/7(1)(d) for material that would interfere with a pending proceeding, identify a confidential source, or endanger someone.
Body-worn camera footage is different. Illinois FOIA does not decide access to it directly. Section 7.5 of the Act exempts records prohibited from disclosure under the Law Enforcement Officer-Worn Body Camera Act, 50 ILCS 706/10-20, and that Act supplies the rules.
Under the Attorney General's published guidance on law-enforcement video, the structure works like this. Body camera recordings are generally exempt from FOIA disclosure unless the recording falls into one of the categories the Body Camera Act makes disclosable. Those categories turn on whether the encounter was flagged, meaning something such as a use of force, a formal complaint against the officer, a weapon discharge, or an arrest or detention occurred, and on who is asking. A recording is disclosable to the subject of the encounter, that person's attorney or legal representative, the officer who wore the camera, and the officer's legal representative. Even a disclosable recording can still be redacted or withheld to the extent another FOIA exemption applies.
The practical consequence: being the person in the video is the strongest available basis for getting it. If you are the subject of the encounter, say so explicitly in the request and identify yourself, rather than filing an anonymous request for the same footage.
Dashcam video, 911 audio, and computer-aided dispatch records travel on their own tracks. Our page on whether 911 calls are public records covers the recording-and-transcript distinction that trips up most requesters.
Appealing a Denial: The Public Access Counselor
This is where Illinois genuinely stands apart. Most states give you an attorney general who can write an advisory letter and a courthouse. Illinois gives you an office that can order disclosure.
The Public Access Counselor sits within the Illinois Attorney General's office. If a public body denies your request, you may file a Request for Review with the PAC within 60 calendar days. Under 5 ILCS 140/9.5(a) that window runs from the date of the final denial, which matters when a public body issues an initial denial and then a second one after an internal review. The PAC has several possible responses under 5 ILCS 140/9.5:
- Decline further review, if the matter is outside its authority or plainly unfounded.
- Mediate the dispute or issue a non-binding determination letter, which is how most matters end.
- Issue a binding opinion resolving the dispute. The PAC must issue a binding opinion within 60 calendar days of receiving the Request for Review, extendable by 30 business days with written notice.
A binding opinion that orders disclosure is enforceable. The public body's only route around it is administrative review in circuit court under 5 ILCS 140/11.5. If the body neither appeals nor complies, the Attorney General may sue to enforce the opinion.
One category of requester is shut out of this route. Under 5 ILCS 140/9.5(b), a person whose request a public body has treated as a request for a commercial purpose may not file a Request for Review, except to contest the public body's determination that the request was in fact for a commercial purpose. A commercial requester who disagrees with a substantive denial goes to court instead.
You are not required to use the PAC at all. Under 5 ILCS 140/11, a requester may file suit directly in circuit court for injunctive or declaratory relief. Note the interaction: filing suit terminates a pending PAC Request for Review, so it is one path or the other rather than both at once.
Most requesters should try the PAC first. It costs nothing, requires no lawyer, and the review process itself resolves a large share of disputes without any opinion being issued.
Records Illinois FOIA Does Not Reach
Several records people expect to obtain through FOIA run through separate systems entirely.
Birth, death, and marriage certificates are vital records administered by the Illinois Department of Public Health and local registrars, with statutory eligibility limits on who may receive a certified copy. They are not FOIA records. Our Illinois death records guide covers who qualifies and how to order.
Deeds, mortgages, and land records are held by county recorders and searched through those offices, as covered in our Illinois property records guide. Court case files, including warrants, are circuit clerk records; see Illinois warrant search for how those are accessed.
Related articles
Disclaimer
This article provides general legal information about the Illinois Freedom of Information Act as of August 2026. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Statutes, fee schedules, and agency procedures change. If a public records dispute affects your legal rights, consult an attorney licensed in Illinois about your specific situation.
Last updated: 2026-08-04.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Illinois FOIA the same as federal FOIA?
No. They share a name and nothing else. The Illinois Freedom of Information Act, 5 ILCS 140/1 et seq., applies to Illinois state and local public bodies. The federal FOIA, 5 U.S.C. 552, applies to federal executive-branch agencies. Filing under the wrong one gets your request rejected, not forwarded.
Do I have to live in Illinois to file an Illinois FOIA request?
No. Illinois FOIA is open to any person, with no residency requirement. That differs from neighboring Kentucky, which limits inspection rights to residents of the Commonwealth as its statute defines that term.
How long does a public body have to respond to my Illinois FOIA request?
Generally 5 business days after it receives the written request, extendable by up to 5 more business days for one of seven statutory reasons stated in writing. Commercial-purpose requests get 21 working days, and requests from a designated recurrent requester get 21 business days.
What happens if the agency just ignores my request?
Silence past the deadline is treated as a denial under the Act, so your appeal rights open immediately. A public body in that position also may not charge you fees for records it produces after missing the deadline.
How much does an Illinois FOIA request cost?
The first 50 pages of black-and-white letter-size or legal-size copies are free. After that, up to 15 cents per page. Color and oversize copies are billed at actual cost. For electronic delivery, a body may charge only the actual cost of the storage medium, so asking for records by email often costs nothing.
Can I get a fee waiver in Illinois?
Yes. Under 5 ILCS 140/6(c) documents shall be furnished without charge or at a reduced charge if the person requesting them states the specific purpose for the request and indicates that a waiver or reduction of the fee is in the public interest. The Act defines that public interest: the principal purpose of the request must be to access and disseminate information regarding the health, safety and welfare or the legal rights of the general public, rather than personal or commercial benefit. The carve-out written into 6(c) covers news media only, for requests whose principal purpose is that same health, safety, welfare, or legal-rights disclosure. Non-profit, scientific, and academic organizations are covered by a separate provision aimed at a different term: 5 ILCS 140/2(c-10) excludes their requests, and news media requests, from the definition of a commercial purpose, with parallel exclusions in 2(g) and 2(h). Ask in the request itself, state your specific purpose, and expect the public body to set the amount of any charge that remains.
Are Public Access Counselor opinions binding on the agency?
They can be. Under 5 ILCS 140/9.5 the PAC may issue a binding opinion resolving the dispute, and a binding opinion ordering disclosure is enforceable, with the public body's only route around it being administrative review in circuit court. Most Requests for Review are resolved informally or by a non-binding determination letter instead, so a binding opinion is the exception rather than the routine outcome.
How long do I have to appeal an Illinois FOIA denial?
You have 60 calendar days to file a Request for Review with the Public Access Counselor, and 5 ILCS 140/9.5(a) runs that window from the final denial rather than from an initial one. Commercial requesters are an exception: 5 ILCS 140/9.5(b) bars a person whose request was treated as commercial from filing a Request for Review at all, except to contest the commercial-purpose determination itself. You may instead file suit in circuit court under 5 ILCS 140/11, but filing suit terminates a pending PAC review.
Can I get body camera footage of my own arrest in Illinois?
Body camera footage is governed by the Law Enforcement Officer-Worn Body Camera Act, 50 ILCS 706/10-20, which Illinois FOIA defers to. Recordings are generally exempt, but the Act makes them disclosable to categories that include the subject of the encounter, that person's attorney, the officer involved, and the officer's legal representative. Identify yourself as the subject in the request rather than filing anonymously. The agency may still redact material another FOIA exemption covers.
Do I have to say why I want the records?
Generally no, subject to two exceptions in 5 ILCS 140/3(c). A public body may not require you to state your purpose except when it is determining whether the request is for a commercial purpose, or whether to grant a request for a fee waiver. Answer the commercial-purpose question honestly, since misrepresenting a commercial request is itself a violation. The fee-waiver exception is one you invoke yourself, because 5 ILCS 140/6(c) requires a specific purpose in order to get the waiver.
Can I use Illinois FOIA to get a birth or death certificate?
No. Vital records are administered by the Illinois Department of Public Health and local registrars under a separate statutory scheme with eligibility limits on who may receive a certified copy. A FOIA request to a public body will not produce one.
Updates
Corrected the scope of the Illinois FOIA fee-waiver carve-out: 5 ILCS 140/6(c) excludes news media alone from 'commercial benefit,' while the exclusion for non-profit, scientific, and academic organizations comes from 5 ILCS 140/2(c-10)'s separate definition of 'commercial purpose.'
Corrected the Illinois FOIA voluminous-request fee scale (5 ILCS 140/6(a-5)) to note that it uses two different thresholds, roughly 40x apart, depending on whether the electronic records are delivered in PDF format or another format; the page previously stated only the higher PDF-only thresholds as if they applied to all electronic data.
Governing law re-checked for recent changes
Independently fact-checked against the cited primary sources
The Law Behind This Article
This article rests on the statutory provisions below, held in our own legal record and retrieved from the official source. Tap a section to read the operative text.
Illinois Compiled Statutes Chapter 5, Act 140 (Freedom of Information Act)
§ 3(a) Each public body shall make available to any person for inspection or copying all public records, except as otherwise provided in Sections 7 and 8.5 of this ActIn forcecited in 3 of our articles
Notwithstanding any other law, a public body may not grant to any person or entity, whether by contract, license, or otherwise, the exclusive right to access and disseminate any public record as defined in this Act. (b) Subject to the fee provisions of Section 6 of this Act, each public body shall promptly provide, to any person who submits a request, a copy of any public record required to be disclosed by subsection (a) of this Section and shall certify such copy if so requested. (c) Requests for inspection or copies shall be made in writing and directed to the public body. Written requests may be submitted to a public body via personal delivery, mail, telefax, or other means available to the public body. Electronic requests under this Section must appear in their entirety within the body of the electronic submission. As a cybersecurity measure, no public body shall be required to open electronically attached files or hyperlinks to view or access details of a request.
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-09-03 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at ilga.gov
Also relied on in: Are Autopsy Reports Public in Illinois? (2026 Guide), Illinois Police Reports: Crash Reports, Incident Reports, and Bodycam Footage
§ 1Pursuant to the fundamental philosophy of the American constitutional form of government, it is declared to be the public policy of the State of Illinois that all persons are entitled to full and complete information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts and policies of those who represent them as public officials and public employees consistent with the terms of this ActIn force
Such access is necessary to enable the people to fulfill their duties of discussing public issues fully and freely, making informed political judgments and monitoring government to ensure that it is being conducted in the public interest. The General Assembly hereby declares that it is the public policy of the State of Illinois that access by all persons to public records promotes the transparency and accountability of public bodies at all levels of government. It is a fundamental obligation of government to operate openly and provide public records as expediently and efficiently as possible in compliance with this Act. This Act is not intended to cause an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, nor to allow the requests of a commercial enterprise to unduly burden public resources, or to disrupt the duly-undertaken work of any public body independent of the fulfillment of any of the fore-mentioned rights of the people to access to information.
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-07-29 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at ilga.gov
Cited in 380 court opinions in our collectionLatest citing opinion in our collection: 2026
Opinions citing this section in our collection:
- Lieber v. Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois University (Illinois Supreme Court 1997)“…this case is whether the Freedom of Information Act (Act) (5 ILCS 140/1 et seq. (West 1994)) requires Southern…”
- Stern v. Wheaton-Warrenville Community Unit School District 200 (Illinois Supreme Court 2009, 233 Ill. 2d 396)“…The provisions of this Act shall be construed to this end.” 5 ILCS 140/1 (West 2006). Simply stated, the…”
- In re Appointment of Special Prosecutor (Illinois Supreme Court 2019, 2019 IL 122949)“…e, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (5 ILCS 140/1 et seq. (West 2012)), sealed gran…”
Identified automatically from the court opinions citing this section — not a ranking of which case controls.
§ 6Authority to charge feesIn force
(a) When a person requests a copy of a record maintained in an electronic format, the public body shall furnish it in the electronic format specified by the requester, if feasible. If it is not feasible to furnish the public records in the specified electronic format, then the public body shall furnish it in the format in which it is maintained by the public body, or in paper format at the option of the requester. A public body may charge the requester for the actual cost of purchasing the recording medium, whether disc, diskette, tape, or other medium. If a request is not a request for a commercial purpose or a voluminous request, a public body may not charge the requester for the costs of any search for and review of the records or other personnel costs associated with reproducing the records. Except to the extent that the General Assembly expressly provides, statutory fees applicable to copies of public records when furnished in a paper format shall not be applicable to those records when furnished in an electronic format.
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-07-29 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at ilga.gov
Cited in 14 court opinions in our collectionLatest citing opinion in our collection: 2025
Opinions citing this section in our collection:
- DesPain v. City of Collinsville (Appellate Court of Illinois 2008)“…certification, unless otherwise provided by State statute." 5 ILCS 140/6(a) (West 2000). Thus, under the plain…”
- Edgar County Watchdogs v. Joliet Township (Appellate Court of Illinois 2023, 226 N.E.3d 113)“…p. 3d 70, 73 (2009)). ¶ 15 Section 6 of the FOIA (5 ILCS 140/6 (West 2020)) addresses fees a public bo…”
- Sage Information Services v. Humm (Appellate Court of Illinois 2012, 977 N.E.2d 895)“…st for certifying a record shall not exceed $1.” 5 ILCS 140/6(a), (b) (West Supp. 2011). ¶ 14 S…”
Identified automatically from the court opinions citing this section — not a ranking of which case controls.
§ 7ExemptionsIn forcecited in 3 of our articles
(1) When a request is made to inspect or copy a public record that contains information that is exempt from disclosure under this Section, but also contains information that is not exempt from disclosure, the public body may elect to redact the information that is exempt. The public body shall make the remaining information available for inspection and copying. Subject to this requirement, the following shall be exempt from inspection and copying: (a) Records created or compiled by a State public defender agency or commission subject to the State Public Defender Act that contain: individual client identity; individual case file information; individual investigation records and other records that are otherwise subject to attorney-client privilege; records that would not be discoverable in litigation; records under Section 2.15; training materials; records related to attorney consultation and representation strategy; or any of the above concerning clients of county public defenders or other defender agencies and firms. This exclusion does not apply to deidentified, aggregated, administrative records, such as general case processing and workload information.
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-07-29 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at ilga.gov
Cited in 203 court opinions in our collectionLatest citing opinion in our collection: 2026
Opinions citing this section in our collection:
- Southern Illinoisan v. Illinois Department of Public Health (Illinois Supreme Court 2006, 218 Ill. 2d 390)“…sed this denial on sections 7(l)(a) and (l)(b) of the FOIA (5 ILCS 140/7(l)(a), (l)(b) (West 1998)), which prote…”
- Lieber v. Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois University (Illinois Supreme Court 1997)“…law was clearly meant to invoke section 7(l)(a) of the Act (5 ILCS 140/7(l)(a) (West 1994)), which exempts from…”
- Illinois Education Ass'n v. Illinois State Board of Education (Illinois Supreme Court 2003)“…mpt from disclosure pursuant to section 7(l)(n) of the Act (5 ILCS 140/7(l)(n) (West 2000)). The IEA appealed, a…”
Identified automatically from the court opinions citing this section — not a ranking of which case controls.
Also relied on in: Illinois Police Body Camera Laws: Mandate & Retention (2026)
§ 9.5Public Access Counselor; opinionsIn force
(a) A person whose request to inspect or copy a public record is denied by a public body, except the General Assembly and committees, commissions, and agencies thereof, may file a request for review with the Public Access Counselor established in the Office of the Attorney General not later than 60 days after the date of the final denial. The request for review must be in writing, signed by the requester, and include (i) a copy of the request for access to records and (ii) any responses from the public body. (b) A person whose request to inspect or copy a public record is made for a commercial purpose as defined in subsection (c-10) of Section 2 of this Act may not file a request for review with the Public Access Counselor. A person whose request to inspect or copy a public record was treated by the public body as a request for a commercial purpose under Section 3.1 of this Act may file a request for review with the Public Access Counselor for the limited purpose of reviewing whether the public body properly determined that the request was made for a commercial purpose.
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-07-29 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at ilga.gov
Cited in 33 court opinions in our collectionLatest citing opinion in our collection: 2023
Opinions citing this section in our collection:
- Perry v. Department of Financial & Professional Regulation (Illinois Supreme Court 2018, 2018 IL 122349)“…ent’s denial by the Public Access Counselor (PAC). See 5 ILCS 140/9.5(a) (West 2012) (“A person whose re…”
- City of Champaign v. Madigan (Appellate Court of Illinois 2013, 992 N.E.2d 629)“…th the Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor. See 5 ILCS 140/9.5 (West 2010). Wade argued the follo…”
- Chicago Tribune Co. v. The Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (Appellate Court of Illinois 2014, 2014 IL App (4th) 130427)“…the Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor. See 5 ILCS 140/9.5 (West 2010). Plaintiff stated it…”
Identified automatically from the court opinions citing this section — not a ranking of which case controls.
§ 11(a) Any person denied access to inspect or copy any public record by a public body may file suit for injunctive or declaratory reliefIn force
(a-5) In accordance with Section 11.6 of this Act, a requester may file an action to enforce a binding opinion issued under Section 9.5 of this Act. (b) Where the denial is from a public body of the State, suit may be filed in the circuit court for the county where the public body has its principal office or where the person denied access resides. (c) Where the denial is from a municipality or other public body, except as provided in subsection (b) of this Section, suit may be filed in the circuit court for the county where the public body is located. (d) The circuit court shall have the jurisdiction to enjoin the public body from withholding public records and to order the production of any public records improperly withheld from the person seeking access. If the public body can show that exceptional circumstances exist, and that the body is exercising due diligence in responding to the request, the court may retain jurisdiction and allow the agency additional time to complete its review of the records. (e) On motion of the plaintiff, prior to or after in camera inspection, the court shall order the public body to provide an index of the records to which access has been denied.
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-07-29 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at ilga.gov
Cited in 147 court opinions in our collectionLatest citing opinion in our collection: 2026
Opinions citing this section in our collection:
- Lieber v. Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois University (Illinois Supreme Court 1997)“…t of Jackson County pursuant to section 11 of the Act (5 ILCS 140/11 (West 1994)). In the circuit court…”
- Illinois Education Ass'n v. Illinois State Board of Education (Illinois Supreme Court 2003)“…nt to the IEA’s motion made under section 11(e) of the Act (5 ILCS 140/11(e) (West 2000)). In the index, the Boar…”
- Duncan Publishing, Inc. v. City of Chicago (Appellate Court of Illinois 1999)“…ed any reasonable basis in law for withholding the record." 5 ILCS 140/11(i) (West 1996). The fee provision was…”
Identified automatically from the court opinions citing this section — not a ranking of which case controls.
§ 4Each public body shall prominently display on its website, make available for inspection and copying, and send through the mail if requested, each of the following: (a) A brief description of itself, which will include, but not be limited to, a short summary of its purpose, a block diagram giving its functional subdivisions, the total amount of its operating budget, the number and location of all of its separate offices, the approximate number of full and part-time employees, and the identification and membership of any board, commission, committee, or council which operates in an advisory capacity relative to the operation of the public body, or which exercises control over its policies or procedures, or to which the public body is required to report and be answerable for its operations; and (b) A brief description of the methods whereby the public may request information and public records, a directory designating the Freedom of Information officer or officers, the address where requests for public records should be directed, and any fees allowable under Section 6 of this ActIn force
If a public body does not maintain a website, it shall also post this information at each of its administrative or regional offices.
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-07-29 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at ilga.gov
§ 3.6Voluminous requestsIn force
(a) Notwithstanding any provision of this Act to the contrary, a public body shall respond to a voluminous request within 5 business days after receipt. The response shall notify the requester: (i) that the public body is treating the request as a voluminous request; (ii) the reasons why the public body is treating the request as a voluminous request; (iii) that the requester must respond to the public body within 10 business days after the public body's response was sent and specify whether the requester would like to amend the request in such a way that the public body will no longer treat the request as a voluminous request; (iv) that if the requester does not respond within 10 business days or if the request continues to be a voluminous request following the requester's response, the public body will respond to the request and assess any fees the public body charges pursuant to Section 6 of this Act; (v) that the public body has 5 business days after receipt of the requester's response or 5 business days from the last day for the requester to amend his or her request, whichever is sooner, to respond to the request; (vi) that the public body may request an additional 10…
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-07-29 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at ilga.gov
Cited in 1 court opinions in our collectionLatest citing opinion in our collection: 2022
Opinions citing this section in our collection:
- Williams v. The City of Chicago (District Court, N.D. Illinois 2022)“…nd for cost-shifting to the requested person. Id., citing 5 ILCS 140/3.6. But the Court is at a loss to see how…”
Identified automatically from the court opinions citing this section — not a ranking of which case controls.
Illinois Compiled Statutes Chapter 50, Act 706 (Law Enforcement Officer-Worn Body Camera Act)
§ 10-20RequirementsIn forcecited in 4 of our articles
(a) The Board shall develop basic guidelines for the use of officer-worn body cameras by law enforcement agencies. The guidelines developed by the Board shall be the basis for the written policy which must be adopted by each law enforcement agency which employs the use of officer-worn body cameras. The written policy adopted by the law enforcement agency must include, at a minimum, all of the following: (1) Cameras must be equipped with pre-event recording, capable of recording at least the 30 seconds prior to camera activation, unless the officer-worn body camera was purchased and acquired by the law enforcement agency prior to July 1, 2015. (2) Cameras must be capable of recording for a period of 10 hours or more, unless the officer-worn body camera was purchased and acquired by the law enforcement agency prior to July 1, 2015. (3) Cameras must be turned on at all times when the officer is in uniform and is responding to calls for service or engaged in any law enforcement-related encounter or activity that occurs while the officer is on duty. (A) If exigent circumstances exist which prevent the camera from being turned on, the camera must be turned on as soon as practicable.
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-08-31 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at ilga.gov
Cited in 8 court opinions in our collectionLatest citing opinion in our collection: 2025
In the courts (editorial summary, independently checked):NBC Subsidiary v. Chicago Police Department (2025) found, on a ground it called unnecessary, that witnesses and a victim on a public street had a reasonable expectation of privacy under 10-20(b)(1), so release needed written permission. People v. Dunn (2023) applied 10-20(a)(3)'s activation duty but denied relief for lack of prejudice.
Opinions citing this section in our collection:
- NBC Subsidiary v. Chicago Police Department (Appellate Court of Illinois 2025, 2025 IL App (1st) 240629)✓A TV station sought body camera video of a fatal hit-and-run under FOIA; the court affirmed on another FOIA exemption, then held as an added ground that the witnesses and the victim filmed in an ambulance had a reasonable expectation of privacy under section 10-20(b)(1).
- NBC Subsidiary (WMAQ-TV) LLC v. Chicago Police Department (Appellate Court of Illinois 2025, 2025 IL App (1st) 240629-U)“…Enforcement Officer-Worn Body Camera Act (Body Camera Act) (50 ILCS 706/10-20(b) (West 2022)), and (3) addition…”
- Lambert v. City of Chicago (Appellate Court of Illinois 2023, 2023 IL App (1st) 220265-U)“…r the Illinois Body-Worn Camera Act (the Body Camera Act) (50 ILCS 706/10-20(b) (West 2020)); and (2) that its disc…”
Identified automatically from the court opinions citing this section — not a ranking of which case controls.
Also relied on in: How to Request Body Cam Footage: State Laws and the Request Process
United States Code Title 5
§ 552Public information; agency rules, opinions, orders, records, and proceedingsIn forcecited in 39 of our articles
Each agency shall make available to the public information as follows: Each agency shall separately state and currently publish in the Federal Register for the guidance of the public— descriptions of its central and field organization and the established places at which, the employees (and in the case of a uniformed service, the members) from whom, and the methods whereby, the public may obtain information, make submittals or requests, or obtain decisions; statements of the general course and method by which its functions are channeled and determined, including the nature and requirements of all formal and informal procedures available; rules of procedure, descriptions of forms available or the places at which forms may be obtained, and instructions as to the scope and contents of all papers, reports, or examinations; substantive rules of general applicability adopted as authorized by law, and statements of general policy or interpretations of general applicability formulated and adopted by the agency; and each amendment, revision, or repeal of the foregoing.
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-09-16 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at uscode.house.gov
Cited in 11,434 court opinions in our collectionLatest citing opinion in our collection: 2026
In the courts (editorial summary, independently checked):United States Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (1989) held categorically that releasing a private citizen's FBI rap sheet to a third party is an unwarranted privacy invasion under Exemption 7(C). Consumer Product Safety Commission v. GTE Sylvania, Inc. (1980) applied Exemption 3, 552(b)(3).
Opinions citing this section in our collection:
- Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society (Supreme Court of the United States 1975, 421 U.S. 240)“…Pub. L. 93-502, § 1 (b) (2), 88 Stat. 1561 (amending 5 U. S. C. § 552 (a)); Packers and Stockyards Act, 42…”
- Consumer Product Safety Commission v. GTE Sylvania, Inc. (Supreme Court of the United States 1980, 447 U.S. 102)✓Consumer groups filed FOIA requests for accident reports manufacturers had given the CPSC as confidential; the Court held that the Consumer Product Safety Act's section 6(b)(1) applies to FOIA requests and that its standards fall within Exemption 3, 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3).
- Taylor v. Sturgell (Supreme Court of the United States 2008, 553 U.S. 880)✓An aircraft enthusiast made a FOIA request for FAA records after a friend's identical suit failed; the Court disapproved preclusion by 'virtual representation' and read § 552(a)(3)(A) as directing agencies to release records to the requesting person, not the public at large.
Identified automatically from the court opinions citing this section — not a ranking of which case controls.
Also relied on in: Are 911 Calls Public Records? State Access Guide (2026), Vital Records Explained: Are birth certificates public records?, How to Check if Your Record Has Been Expunged
Sources and References
- Illinois Freedom of Information Act, 5 ILCS 140/1 et seq., Illinois General Assembly(ilga.gov).gov
- A Guide to the Attorney General's Public Access Counselor, Illinois Attorney General (Request for Review and binding opinions under 5 ILCS 140/9.5)(illinoisattorneygeneral.gov).gov
- FOIA for Law Enforcement Agencies: Video Recordings, Illinois Attorney General Public Access Bureau(illinoisattorneygeneral.gov).gov
- Law Enforcement Officer-Worn Body Camera Act, 50 ILCS 706/10-20, Illinois General Assembly(ilga.gov).gov
- Public Access Counselor, Illinois Attorney General (Requests for Review, fee waivers under 5 ILCS 140/6(c), and commercial-request rules)(illinoisattorneygeneral.gov).gov
- Illinois Freedom of Information Act, 5 ILCS 140/2 (definitions, including 'commercial purpose' at 2(c-10) and the recurrent-requester and voluminous-request exclusions at 2(g) and 2(h)), Illinois General Assembly(ilga.gov)
- Illinois Freedom of Information Act, 5 ILCS 140/6 (fees, and the public-interest fee waiver with its news-media 'commercial benefit' carve-out at 6(c)), Illinois General Assembly(ilga.gov)