Anonymity and public records are two sets of things that are often in conflict with each other. Documents like land and court records are often available online, and whether it’s the responsibility of the filer or the county posting the documents, it’s important to ensure sensitive information stays protected.
For records like these, there are processes in place to redact information before something is available to the public. That’s a good deal of the work we do here at Extract, using software to identify personal information before removing metadata and permanently burning pixels into the document. Other times, filers will redact their own personal information and still other times, county employees will manually remove sensitive information before posting a document.
County governments are far from the only place personal information is available, and access to that information has led to some truly horrific consequences.
At the end of last year, New Jersey enacted a state law in response to one of these consequences, criminalizing the publishing of judges’ or their families’ addresses or phone numbers. The legislation, known as Daniel’s Law, is named after the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed last summer. The law took effect immediately and will also prohibit publication of the personal information of prosecutors and law enforcement officers.
Salas believes that the murderer, a disgruntled attorney who investigators believe was upset at the pace at which his men’s rights case was advancing, found her address online. Hopefully the law will bring more awareness to where personal information is published online as access to this data isn’t always just the fault of bad actors, but could also be unaware employees performing a routine task.
At the bill signing, Salas reiterated her support for legislation like this to occur at a national level.
““We, the federal government need a new comprehensive approach to judicial security, particularly, considering the vast amount of personal information that’s available on the internet. It is my sincere hope that we can address this critical issue at a national level, specific steps must be taken to restrict access to judges’ personally identifiable information, develop ways to monitor serious threats and improve courthouse and judicial security systems.””
What makes adherence to the law difficult isn’t the presence of personal information in places like land or court records, where best practices for removing sensitive information are already in place, it’s all of the other potential places this information could be online. This could be something as innocuous as a PTA list or could be the result of something more malicious. Either way, the information is protected by law and needs to be kept away from public consumption.
If you’re interested in learning more about how Extract automates the process of redacting sensitive information in traditional public documents like land or court records, or any other type of document, please reach out for more information.
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.