One of the issues that always seems to come up around public records is who owns the responsibility of keeping personal information safe. Generally, this is decided at a county level through legislation, and either the filer or the court will be in charge of redacting any sensitive information.
This past January, the issue was decided at a state level in Florida, with the State Supreme Court unanimously ruling that the responsibility of protecting sensitive information lies with the filer. The reasoning behind the decision was that when courts have to find and redact information in their documents, there are significant delays in getting the public access to those records. It should be noted, though, that this ruling was opposed by the Florida Clerks Association.
They pushed back largely because of the concern that individual filers won’t do as good of a job at protecting their sensitive information as the clerks would. It’s certainly a concern, as there will always be criminals scouring public records databases for personally identifiable information.
Rather than leave constituents to fend with this change themselves, the Lee County Clerk of Court is offering a series of webinars, teaching citizens how to use court technology and keep their information safe.
The series of webinars starts tomorrow with the confidential information overview and then will continue with classes teaching citizens how to search records, make use of the online filing system, and e-certify court records.
It’s definitely encouraging to see counties help their citizens get up to speed on these requirements although the information should be archived or regularly broadcast, since many people won’t engage with the system until many months down the line.
At Extract, we hear the message of the Florida Supreme Court loud and clear, and place a huge amount of importance on the public’s ability to access records. That’s why, for court records, land records, and other government documents, we automate the process of both finding and redacting sensitive information. It’s a critical process to get right, so we leverage AI to read documents like a human would, with software that understands the clues and markers of information that needs to be redacted.
If you’re interested in learning more about how we make this process both fast and accurate, please reach out.
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.