Glossary

Every Veil and official-information term you’ll meet, in plain language. Linked terms open the deeper reference.

A

Attach (attach documents)

Copying documents from a matching case into yours as genuinely new documents with a blank review state — copies, never shared rows, so the source case is untouched. Only documents your scope can open are offered, and each copy carries an “Attached” badge showing where it came from. See reuse documents from a past case.

Attestation

The case-level formal statement that the disclosure decision is made: an assigned Final Approver (or assigned Lead) chooses the “Disclosure outcome” and presses “Attest case complete” on “Finalise & Close”. External packages cannot be generated until the case is fully attested.

Audit trail

The immutable, per-case log of every action — who, what role, what target, when. Entries cannot be modified or deleted. Found on the case’s “Audit Trail” tab; exportable as CSV or PDF.

B

Bulk review

The case-wide page (opened with “Bulk Review” from the Documents tab) that applies one redaction decision across many documents at once, in three steps: auto-accept by confidence, auto-clear structured PII, and “Review by reach”.

C

Case (request)

One official-information request and everything attached to it: documents, detections, decisions, schedule, audit trail, and deadline. Also called a request.

Chain of custody

A generated report reconstructing a case’s full decision trail — suitable for an Ombudsman review. Included in the Internal and Ombudsman packages and available from “Reports”.

Confidence

Veil’s 0–100% score of how sure the detection layer is. High-confidence routine detections can be accepted in bulk; low confidence always deserves a human look.

Custom rules

Agency-specific detection rules — keywords, patterns and entities mapped to withholding grounds — that run alongside the AI. Managed by the Lead and Senior Reviewer. Rules detect; they never redact.

D

Deadline health

The dashboard classification of every case against its statutory deadline: “On track”, “Urgent”, or “Overdue”.

Detection

One piece of potentially withholdable content Veil has flagged — a name, a phone number, a privileged sentence. Every detection starts pending; a person decides each one.

Decision states

Each detection card shows where it stands: “to decide” (pending), “redacted” (withhold), or “kept visible” (release).

Document states

The review journey of a document: “Ready for Review” → “In Review” → “Reviewed (Initial)” → (“Endorsed”, on endorsement-required cases) → “Signed Off” (detections locked; reversible by “Send back”) → “Released”. A document can also be “Excluded” from review, and “Error” means processing failed, with a plain-English reason.

E

Edit lock

Only one person can edit a document at a time. Others see “This document is read-only — another reviewer is editing it.” A Lead can take over a stale lock.

Endorsement (senior)

On a case with “Require senior endorsement before final sign-off” turned on, a senior’s formal concurrence (“Endorse” → “Confirm Endorsement”) moves a reviewed document to “Endorsed” — the prerequisite for final sign-off there. Any detection change voids the endorsement and regresses the document.

Excluded

The status of a document removed from review scope with “Mark Excluded” — it stays on the case but is not reviewed or released.

Export package

The output bundle built at export. Three types: Requester (screened, the only one for external release), Internal (adds audit evidence), Ombudsman (adds unredacted originals).

F

Fail-closed

Veil’s safety posture at export: if verification finds a leak — or cannot run — the external package is blocked. “Couldn’t verify” is not “clean”; a block is fixed, never bypassed.

Final approval (sign-off)

The per-document decision by a Final Approver or Lead (“Final Approval” → “Confirm Approval”) that sets “Signed Off” and locks the document’s redaction set while it stays signed off (see Send back).

Free and frank opinions

A withholding ground protecting candid internal advice and opinions so officials can speak plainly (LGOIMA s 7(2)(f)(i) / OIA s 9(2)(g)(i)).

Freeze

The lock applied at final sign-off: while a document is “Signed Off” its redaction set cannot change (“Detections are locked after final approval”). It is not permanent — a Senior Reviewer, Final Approver or Lead can “Send back” the signed-off document from “Finalise & Close”, returning it to “In Review”, unlocking it, and resetting the attestation round. Release freezes the whole case, and that is terminal.

I

Ingesting

The case status shown while uploaded documents are still running the processing pipeline. The case moves on once processing completes.

Import (imported analysis)

Reusing a previously processed identical document’s analysis — OCR, classification and detections — instead of re-running the AI. Only a byte-identical file matches; imported detections all arrive pending, and the document carries an “Imported” badge. See work with imported analysis.

L

Lead (request manager)

The role that owns requests end to end: creates cases, assigns work, extends deadlines, releases and closes. Shown on screen as “LGOIMA Lead” or “OIA Lead”.

LGOIMA

The Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 — the disclosure law for councils. Withholding sections s 6 / s 7 / s 17; review right s 27(3); deadline per s 12.

M

My Queue

The work list of every document awaiting review — “Ready for Review”, “In Review”, or “Submitted” — across all the cases you can see (not just those assigned to you).

O

OCR

Optical character recognition — the cloud service that reads every uploaded document. If it’s unavailable, uploads show “Error” until it recovers.

OIA

The Official Information Act 1982 — the disclosure law for central government. Withholding sections s 6 / s 9 / s 18; review right s 28(3); deadline per s 15.

Ombudsman

The independent oversight body for both Acts. A dissatisfied requester can ask the Ombudsman to review your decision — which is why defensibility matters.

P

Pattern detection

The always-on layer that finds structured NZ identifiers (phone numbers, emails, IRD numbers, addresses, bank accounts, passports) at high confidence.

Provenance chip

The label on an imported detection — “Imported from prior review — needs your fresh judgement” — showing the source case (a link, if it’s within your scope) and that nothing is pre-decided.

Public-interest test

The balancing some grounds require: information may only be withheld if the withholding interest is not outweighed by the public interest in release (LGOIMA s 7 / OIA s 9).

R

Redaction (preview vs permanent)

In review, “Redacted” is a visual preview only. At export, accepted redactions are burned in and the withheld text is destroyed — there is no undo.

Regime

Which Act your instance runs under — LGOIMA (councils) or OIA (central government). Fixed at activation; only wording and grounds differ, plus one LGOIMA-only tool (s 48 public-excluded).

Release

The Lead’s terminal action (“Mark as released”) after the response has gone to the requester: it freezes the case and all documents and stamps the disclosure date. Irreversible.

[REVIEW REQUIRED]

The flag on sensitive detection types — legal privilege, safety, law enforcement and similar — that must be decided individually. Every bulk-accept path skips them.

Reviewer note

An optional note added with a ground in the grounds editor. It appears in the withholding schedule — write it as you’d want the requester or Ombudsman to read it.

S

Send back (request changes)

A senior tier returning a document to “In Review”. Before final approval: “Request Changes” → “Send Back”, usually with a reason. After final approval: “Send back” on “Finalise & Close” re-opens even a “Signed Off” document — unlocking its detections and resetting the case attestation round. Only release is terminal.

Sensitive processing (NZ-only)

The “Sensitive — process in New Zealand only (no AI)” upload option: the document is processed entirely in-country and never sent to the AI service — pattern-matching, custom rules and manual review only, born-digital files only, with a “Sensitive — in-region, no AI” badge and lower automated recall.

Separation of duties

The independence rule at sign-off: you cannot finally approve a document whose detections you reviewed yourself. On by default.

Similar requests

The ranked list of past cases whose meaning and wording match a new request’s summary — shown at intake and via “Find Similar” on any case, across every case in the system.

Statutory deadline

The legal response clock — 20 working days from receipt (LGOIMA s 12 / OIA s 15), assigned automatically at intake. Leads can formally extend it, with the reason audit-trailed.

U

Unlocatable

A red badge meaning an accepted detection’s text could not be found in the document, so it was not redacted there. Fix the detection text or escalate — the export verifier remains the final authority.

V

Verification

The automated post-export check that accepted redactions are genuinely gone from the output files. External packages fail closed on any leak or if the check cannot run.

Visibility scope

What you can see, set separately from role: department scope (cases involving your department) or org-wide. The Administrator has no case access at all.

W

Withholding ground

The section of the Act that justifies withholding a piece of information — for example privacy (LGOIMA s 7(2)(a) / OIA s 9(2)(a)). Every redacted detection needs one before export.

Withholding schedule

The generated document listing every withheld item with its ground and reasoning — sent to the requester (screened) and relied on in any Ombudsman review.