Balancing transparency and privacy is always a tricky challenge, particularly with records that are made available to the general public. Court records have been notoriously sticky as jurisdictions have a responsibility to inform the public about criminals and convictions, but putting out too much information online can lead to further criminal activity.
We’ve worked on redaction projects for county courts where identity thieves were finding social security and drivers license numbers of citizens convicted of a DUI and using that information to carry out fraudulent transactions. Last summer, right here in this blog, we saw an example where people receiving citations in Pinellas County, Florida were able to see their social security numbers online.
Sometimes instances of running into personally identifiable information (PII) like a date of birth or social security number is an error. Manual redaction processes and uncertainty as to whose responsibility redaction is can lead to mistakes, but state or local laws will usually specify exactly what needs to be redacted and who is responsible.
If a court document is being posted online about me, I know that I’d want all of my PII removed from the document. By the same token, I understand why others in my community or journalists might want to know who I am. Finding this equilibrium can be difficult.
In Missouri, open records advocates worry that the amount of information being removed may have gone too far. St. Louis’ NPR affiliate looked into the redaction processes of Missouri courts, which have been called the, “least transparent in the nation.”
The statute first gained legs back in 2017, as online access to Missouri’s court records meant the files were going to be exponentially more public than in the past. It took until 2023 for the redaction legislation to take effect, when it was included in an omnibus spending bill in response to a constituent concern that their child’s name would appear in the public record.
The law that went into effect is significantly broader than what was previously in place and goes well beyond the scope of protecting a minor’s name. The Missouri Press-Bar Association voiced opposition to enacting the law because of its scope, but also because court procedure changes aren’t supposed to be included in expansive omnibus bills. The organization says that the new law expands the type of cases included, adding, “redaction requirements into practically all cases, criminal and civil, multiplying them dramatically, because all criminal cases involve victims whose names would have to be redacted, and practically all cases involve witnesses, whose names and identifying information would have to be redacted.”
This means that no witness names are included in court documents at all. While this can make cases difficult to parse for the public, detractors of the law are more concerned with the fact that court proceedings are public events where there is no expectation of this type of broad privacy. This privacy extends beyond the average citizen as well, including law enforcement officials and expert witnesses, roles that require visibility for accountability.
While there are calls to change the law, it remains in place at the moment. The unintended consequences of perhaps a well-meaning gesture mean not just an opaque court, but also the increased legwork of de-identifying or redacting this significant amount of data going forward.
The solution to manage this type of volume is typically automated redaction software, particularly when historical documents need to be updated to current privacy standards. Extract’s redaction software has been used in hundreds of government agencies, processing billions of pages without ever exposing redacted data. If this is something your court or government agency needs help with, please reach out so we can give you a demonstration of our product.
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.