Washington, DC - In the spirit of Sunshine Week a national effort promoting open government and freedom of information, we thought you’d like to know about some new technological tools and initiatives that help make FBI information and records more accessible and simpler to use.

In October 2010, in response to citizen feedback, we launched a major overhaul of FBI.gov—making it more user-friendly in its design and navigation and adding many new pages and features. Dozens of pages, for example, can now be converted into RSS news feeds so you can easily keep track of content that interests you. A new search function in our popular Wanted by the FBI site makes it easier to help find fugitives and missing persons, and a new online version of the National Stolen Art File can help determine if the artwork you’re interested in buying might be stolen.

Other new and ongoing initiatives that may interest you:

• The Vault—Visit our revamped electronic reading room, which makes FBI records past and present searchable by key word and topic and easier to read through a convenient web document viewer.
• Crime Statistics—Run searches of our Uniform Crime Reports more easily, including through a new online tool that builds usable sets of crime data going back to 1960.
• FBI Child ID App—Download our first mobile application to keep photos and other vital information about your child right at hand in the unlikely event he or she goes missing.
• Social Media—Visit us on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter to join the conversation and get our breaking news and other content.
• Podcasts—Listen to and download our four regular shows on iTunes, along with new video versions of “Wanted by the FBI.”
• FBI in español—Check out our first web portal for Spanish-speakers, which provides translations of key webpages and stories targeted to Hispanic audiences.
• Widgets—Incorporate FBI content into your website or blog.
• E-Mail Alerts—Join the 200,000 subscribers who have FBI news and information across 250+ categories sent straight to their inboxes or wireless devices.

The public has responded to these initiatives by coming to our website in record numbers in recent years, with more than 50 million visits in 2011 alone. Stay tuned for more new tools and features in the months to come.