[apaprocki]

So imagine this was a company and a customer wanted a relative's data because they died. Wouldn't you require they deliver proper proof? The FOIA requests all work this way. They just want a cursory check that the person reasonably died so the government employee is not on the hook for verifying it. If you knowingly deliver false proof you are defrauding the federal government instead of a government employee on the hook for releasing records incorrectly because they made the wrong call. It allows any reasonably trained person to make sure the documentation was supplied correctly and process the request.