As the Missouri court system prepares to widen electronic public access to its records, the judiciary is faced with the difficult challenge of redaction.
“The issue isn't with the more recent few years of filings, it's that all the old files are going to be put online also and many of those old files were not redacted because they weren't accessible to the public at all,” said Missouri attorney Marc Ellinger, president of the Republican National Lawyers Association. “Now, those documents will become accessible to the public and many of them have personal information in it.”
The transition is occurring as a result of an administrative order issued by the Missouri Supreme Court last year.
“They're going through a process of changing security levels to make sure that those documents that had personal information are either redacted or are not accessible,” Ellinger told the St. Louis Record. “It's creating a bit of a problem on looking back but going forward, it makes sense because we'll know now what to not put in and how to protect it so that citizens can see what's going on in their courts.”
The rule becomes effective on July 1, 2023, but the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported in April that there are thousands of records currently online that contain unredacted personal information, which was allegedly uploaded by one state agency.
"The state judicial records committee has directed the state court administrator’s office to identify the documents and determine what programming might be necessary to elevate their security level to prevent access, either remotely or via the public access terminals," said Beth Riggert, communications counsel with the Supreme Court of Missouri.
"The Office of State Courts Administrator (OSCA) has begun this work but has no estimate as to how long the implementation process might take. Whether to raise the security level to prevent remote access to additional public documents filed prior to July 1 remains under consideration."
Under Court Operating Rule 2.02, personal information, such as social security numbers, state identification numbers, taxpayer identification numbers, names of minors, financial institution account numbers, credit or debit card numbers, birth dates, and addresses of victims or witnesses must be redacted.
“With the assistance of Missouri’s Court Automation Committee, a statutory entity comprised of members from all three branches of government, the judiciary has been working toward this goal for a number of years,” said Chief Justice Paul C. Wilson in a June 28, 2022, statement.
“These improvements will fundamentally change the way individuals access public court documents while balancing the need to protect confidential information and ensure the overall security and reliability of our underlying case management system."