Posted: October 25, 2004
Code of Judicial Administration. Rule Regulating Access to Court Records.
Final Report of the Committee on Privacy and Public Court Records.
CJA 04-202. Purpose. New. Outlines the purposes served by open and closed court records.
CJA 04-202.01. Definitions. Repeal & Reenact. Defines terms used in court rules regulating access to records.
CJA 04-202.02. Records classification. Repeal & Reenact. Classifies court records as public or non-public.
CJA 04-202.03. Records access. Repeal & Reenact. Identifies who has access to non-public court records.
CJA 04-202.04. Request to access a record associated with a case; request to classify a record associated with a case. Repeal & Reenact. Establishes procedures for requesting access to a record associated with a case or for requesting confidential treatment of a case record.
CJA 04-202.05. Request to access an administrative record; research; request to classify an administrative record; request to create an index. Repeal & Reenact. Establishes procedures for requesting access to a record not associated with a case or for requesting confidential treatment of an administrative record. Establishes procedures for requesting non-public records for research and procedures for using a data element as an index to the court’s database.
CJA 04-202.06. Response to request to access or classify a court record. Repeal & Reenact. Establishes minimum requirements for responding to a records request.
CJA 04-202.07. Appeals. New. Establishes procedures for reviewing an adverse decision.
CJA 04-202.09. Miscellaneous. Amend. Permits a filer to redact sensitive information from pleadings. Requires vendors to comply with court policies regarding access to records.
CJA 04-202.10. Record sharing. New. Established procedures for sharing non-public records with other governmental entities.
CJA 04-202.12. Access to electronic data elements. Repeal. Eliminates distinctions between electronic data elements and public or non-public data generally.
CJA 04-205. Security of court records. Amend. Technical changes.
This comment is personal and not reflective of any opinion other than my own.
The report concludes “the courts should make public a party’s name,address, date of birth, driver’s license number and the last four digits of a party’s social security number.”
I recognize the court is working in an existing context where state government and the courts have regularly required home address, date of birth, driver’s license number and social security number as identifiers, but I wish the courts had undertaken the larger task of protecting citizens’ privacy by rolling back the public use of these items, even to the point of approaching the legislature for a policy change.
These items are a roadmap to identity theft. The public interest in dispute resolution should not require that personal privacy be forfeit as a condition of using the courts or being involved in civil or criminal litigation. I wish that the proposal pushed more of this information to the sensetive information sheet, fully accessible only to those with a legitimate interest, who agree to respect privacy concerns.