If you’ve read our blog before, you know that we like to have sensitive information redacted. As governments make documents from the courts and in land records available to the public, it’s important that people don’t have immediate access to personally identifiable information like birthdates and social security numbers.
In Michigan, birthdates have been being removed from public court records over the past several years because of a rule set to go into effect on January 1st of 2022, which attempts to limit identity theft by removing birthdates from these records.
A new bill, discussed just a couple weeks ago, aims to reverse this mandate and preserve birthdates in court records. The reasoning behind the bill is that it’s believed that this information can already be readily found on the internet and that redaction will harm companies performing background checks and, in turn, employers conducting background checks.
On one side, you have business groups arguing for the bill. This group includes organizations like the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association, the Professional Background Screening Association, and individual companies like Rocket Mortgage.
The competing argument comes from the group actually performing this redaction work, the State Court Administrative Office. The office noted that no one voiced objection to the rule in 2018 or 2019, when it was open for public comment for a year. Additionally, they’ve already spent $400,000 and 7,000 hours implementing the rule.
Even if they agreed with the premise, the courts also argue that the scope of the bill misses the mark. As it’s written, the courts would no longer be able to redact minor names and dates of birth when they show up in case documents. The courts also say that there is a specific waiver that background check companies can use to still be able to access information.
Redacting information on court and land records is usually a decision made at a county or state level, and must be weighed on the public benefit versus the inconveniences it can impose. Regardless, when agencies decide to go forward with redaction, it doesn’t have to be a cost-prohibitive and labor-intensive project. Extract offers an automated solution, ID Shield, that can read your documents like your employees would, and automatically identify and redact the information you need, whether it’s a date of birth, SSN, name, or something else. Send us a note and we’d be happy to answer any questions you have or show you a demonstration of the software.
About the Author: Chris Mack
Chris is a Marketing Manager at Extract with experience in product development, data analysis, and both traditional and digital marketing. Chris received his bachelor’s degree in English from Bucknell University and has an MBA from the University of Notre Dame. A passionate marketer, Chris strives to make complex ideas more accessible to those around him in a compelling way.