Privacy and Public Access to Court Records Article

Court records include the case file of a lawsuit, records of any hearings, and information the court or clerk court prepares in connection with any judicial proceeding. A court's management information and data (budgets, reports, and statistics) are also considered court records. Since computers make it easy to gather and store information, many courts have developed databases of information. This database is also considered a court record.

Public Access to Court Records
Court records have generally been open and available to the public. In the past, if you wanted to check a court record, you had to go to the clerk's office in the courthouse. The process was time consuming. Now, many court documents are kept in an electronic format. Most courts display court documents on the worldwide web, the Internet. A person can now easily look at official court documents from outside the courthouse. Such easy access to court documents has raised concerns about personal privacy and public safety. The challenge today is to balance the goal of open access to court records with an individual's right to privacy.

Freedom of Information Laws
The federal government and most states have freedom of information laws, which provide individuals with a right to access public records. Some records do not have to be made available, including personnel and medical records, records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, the identity of a confidential source, and trade secrets. A person can be required to pay a reasonable fee to obtain a copy of a public record.

Personal Privacy
Courts increasingly require more information about the persons involved in a lawsuit, the nature of the lawsuit, and the events of the case. A person has a right of privacy in personal information kept by the courts. Simply because a person is involved in a lawsuit does not mean that the information the court keeps about that person should be available to the public. The defendant in a lawsuit (the person being sued) is not a willing participant in the legal process. Information about the plaintiff (the person suing) and the defendant may be sensitive or embarrassing. Personal information such as birth date, address, telephone number, and social security number should probably be restricted because of the potential for personal harm or inconvenience if the information is released to the general public. The courts are still trying to determine what records should be restricted.