https://illinoisfoia.org/public-bodies/cook-county-sheriff-s-office/ 2026-06-11T00:00:00Z https://illinoisfoia.org/opinions/letter-94362/ 2026-06-11T00:00:00Z

Under FOIA, a public body may withhold records if another statute specifically prohibits disclosure. Here, the Genetic Information Privacy Act (GIPA) sections 15(a) and 15(b) bar the Sheriff's Office from disclosing genetic testing reports derived from a biological sample. Because the requested Parabon Nanolabs phenotype report is exactly that type of record, the denial was proper and no further action was warranted.

https://illinoisfoia.org/opinions/letter-70612/ 2024-08-23T00:00:00Z

Mr. Chapman asked the Cook County Sheriff's Office for a list of metadata related to phone calls made by people on electronic monitoring. The Sheriff's Office refused, arguing that the information wasn't already compiled in a single report. The Attorney General's office agreed, stating that FOIA does not require public bodies to create new documents or combine data from different databases to answer a request.

https://illinoisfoia.org/opinions/letter-70185/ 2023-09-28T00:00:00Z

A journalist requested an email from the Cook County Sheriff's Office, which the office refused to release by claiming it was exempt from disclosure. The Attorney General's Public Access Counselor reviewed the email and found that the Sheriff's Office did not provide enough evidence to justify keeping it secret. Consequently, the PAC asked the Sheriff's Office to release the email to the requester.

https://illinoisfoia.org/opinions/letter-34653/ 2017-04-04T00:00:00Z

SpotCrime.com requested daily crime data from the Cook County Sheriff's Office, which the Sheriff's Office denied by classifying the requester as 'commercial and recurrent.' The Attorney General's office agreed with the Sheriff, finding that SpotCrime does not qualify as 'news media' under the law. This means the Sheriff's Office is allowed to follow the specific, more restrictive procedures for handling requests from commercial entities.

https://illinoisfoia.org/opinions/letter-40373/ 2016-07-12T00:00:00Z

A requester sought reports and security-camera footage relating to numerous grievances from a county sheriff's office. The PAC determined that the office properly treated the request as voluminous because it involved more than 500 pages, but violated FOIA by waiting too long to notify the requester that it was doing so. Because the office later provided the first 50 pages without charge and FOIA provides no specific remedy for a late voluminous-request notice, no further remedial action was requ