Request 041 — 2/10/2026

We demand to be taken seriously

It’s Tuesday, happy foiaday!

Yesterday marked week six (!) of foiaday, which still feels crazy.

I published a round-up of the requests of the past week-ish, including last night’s request for records from the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District — the governmental body encompassing Walt Disney World.

But that was yesterday! It’s late, I’m on deadline, and in a flare, so let’s go: complaints and deets about professional licenses.

If there's a coworker or friend you think would benefit from this newsletter, feel free to forward it to them! If they subscribe, they'll also get a link to a template for the tracker I like to use to keep tabs on requests I've filed.

We’ve done a few requests like this so far, including inspections and reports on licensed amusement rides and even requests about labor and workplace safety.

But! There are so, so many jobs that require professional licensing — everything from doctors to architects to real estate brokers. And more. (And we’ll talk about the “and more” in a sec.)

For the sake of this request, I’m going to focus on Illinois, and keep it tight. (This is a great resource of state agencies regulating professional licensing as of 2022!)

The state has an A-Z list of jobs that require some kind of licensing, and in Illinois, like many states, you can not only look up whether someone is licensed, but file complaints about their performance, work or behavior on the job.

Let’s grab a shortlist of jobs, then maybe some statistics about the license holders and complaints filed in the past year!

Jobs first. These are the ones that stand out to me as random examples:

• Auctioneers

• Fingerprint Vendors

• Funeral Directors & Embalmers

• Firearm Instructors

• Naprapaths (I think this is a kind of chiropractic practitioner?)

• Detection of Deception professionals (aka polygraph test administers!)

• Wholesale Drug Distributors

• Sex Offender Evaluators

I think most of these are just jobs that I didn’t realize people could have, and now I’m really, really in deep rabbit-hole wise.

All of these jobs are regulated and licensed by the Illinois Department of Financial & Professional Regulation, so that’s where our requests will go. Their website has a searchable portal to find details about licensed professionals, as well as an online system to file complaints. You can also look at disciplinary and enforcement measures taken against a roster of people on these monthly PDF reports. (Here’s Dec 2025.)

That said, they have a few caveats they make bolded/clear — that there are some exemptions for documents, including about investigations following a complaint, that can’t be disclosed without a subpoena:

But it’s kind of weird, because on the page for FOIA, they make it clear that some records can be requested. So I think this might be a “hop on the phone and figure it out” kind of situation:

Let’s grab all complaints for these jobs within the past year, though, and see what we can find. I don’t just want complaints filed, but I do also want disciplinary/enforcement measures, which they do already sort of disclose (albeit buried in a big list across a handful of files).

- Data or documents sufficient to show a list or log of all complaints, grievances or reports filed to IDFPR about the following professions between 1/1/2025 and 2/10/2026:
Auctioneers
Fingerprint Vendors
Funeral Directors & Embalmers
Firearm Instructors
Naprapaths 
Detection of Deception professionals 
Wholesale Drug Distributors
Sex Offender Evaluators

Please release documents in a .xlsx or .csv format, including non-PII available at this link (https://idfpr.illinois.gov/admin/dpr/complaint.html), like the date the complaint was filed, the narrative report and description of the complaint, the license number, business or licensee name in question and related metadata and outcomes, if available.

- Data or documents sufficient to show a list of all revoked licenses between 1/1/2025 and 2/10/2026 for the following professions:
Auctioneers
Fingerprint Vendors
Funeral Directors & Embalmers
Firearm Instructors
Naprapaths 
Detection of Deception professionals 
Wholesale Drug Distributors
Sex Offender Evaluators

Please release documents in a .xlsx or .csv format if at all possible, including the licensee's name, license number, city, the date the license was revoked, any associated details about why the license was revoked and related metadata and outcomes, if available.

I’m kind of curious to see if we’ll be able to get narrative responses back about complaints. That, to me, seems like the juiciest part of this all — I need to know what would get a polygraph professional’s license revoked? (lying? lol) — but it may not be subject for disclosure if it’s considered investigatory.

I guess my thing is that if the complaint is effectively communication about said professional, and an investigation hadn’t been opened yet, could it still be eligible for FOIA? Unclear. I might have to request aggregate information. ugh.

Let’s just revise the request now.

- Data or documents sufficient to show a list or log of all complaints, grievances or reports filed to IDFPR about the following professions between 1/1/2025 and 2/10/2026:
Auctioneers
Fingerprint Vendors
Funeral Directors & Embalmers
Firearm Instructors
Naprapaths 
Detection of Deception professionals 
Wholesale Drug Distributors
Sex Offender Evaluators

Please release documents in a .xlsx or .csv format, including non-PII available at this link (https://idfpr.illinois.gov/admin/dpr/complaint.html), like the date the complaint was filed, the narrative report and description of the complaint, the license number, business or licensee name in question and related metadata and outcomes, if available. Please do not include the business name, license number, or identifiable information about the licensee if it would fall under 20 ILCS 2105/2105-117. Please only include details like the city, the description of the complaint and the date filed.

Maybe? This could yield the descriptions of the complaints, but no details about the licensed professional being targeted. I think I’ll just need to send them an email and ask. (Unfortunately, this request came to mind after close of business, so this FOIA is getting schedule-sent at 8:30 am, now featuring a question about whether it’s subject to disclosure.)

Anyway. Let’s grab the FOIA log and retention schedule, too:

- A log, list, document or data to show all records requests filed with this agency (like a "FOIA log") between 1/1/2024 and the present. Please release documents in a digitized format and include a description of the request, the date of the request, the name or affiliation of the requester and the outcome of the request. Please release the document in a .xlsx or .csv if possible, or a .pdf if not.

- The most recent records retention schedule for the agency, which includes a list of documents kept by the agency and for how long each record is retained. This may be called a general records schedule, a records index, or something else. Please release this in a .pdf if possible.

Okay. Ice pack! Biofreeze! Setting an alarm for very early to write write write and code code code on deadline(s)! Schedule-sending an email to IDFPR!

All great things! Time for bed. Happy filing!

Cam