Bringing Indiana’s court records into the Internet age
In January, the Indiana Supreme Court created a new task force to address developments in technology impacting online public access to court records. Chaired by Chief Justice Loretta Rush, the twenty-member Advisory Task Force on Remote Access to and Privacy of Electronic Court Records consists of judges, court clerks, legislators, academics, and lawyers from the private and public sectors.
It is charged with presenting findings and recommendations to the Court’s Records Management Committee on best practices for providing maximum online access while remaining true to the purposes of Administrative Rule 9, which include protecting individual privacy rights and interests.
The dilemma – public availability versus litigant privacy
Though not by design, paper court records struck a pragmatic balance between public access and litigant privacy. Non-confidential records were freely available to the public, but visiting the courthouse where the physical file was located involved enough inconvenience that most case information effectively remained private. In other words, these public documents were kept in “practical obscurity.”
Digitized recordkeeping and the Internet are rapidly changing that traditional balance. Online chronological case summaries are nearly universal, allowing easy remote access to at least basic case information. And, as Indiana courts move towards e-filing and keeping files in digital form, technology will exist to offer anyone with an Internet connection one-click access to court records.
This technology presents the promise of unprecedented transparency for Indiana courts—and with it the opportunity for increased public confidence in court operations. But it also carries the potential to do real harm, with significant privacy interests at stake.
Criminal charges, fraud allegations in civil suits, and the like can cost people their jobs or destroy their reputations, even if they ultimately prevail on the merits.
The primary goal of the Task Force is to balance that promise of transparency with this potential for harm.
Moving Indiana forward —appellate filings and trial court records
After studying this dilemma at its inaugural meeting in February, the Task Force eagerly began its mission to shape Indiana’s approach to accessing court records in the Internet Age. Acting swiftly on the Task Force’s initial recommendations, the Supreme Court ordered all appellate briefs filed by attorneys to be posted on the MyCase.IN.gov web portal as of April 1. This program is now expanding to all motions filed by attorneys with Indiana’s appellate courts.
In May, the Task Force began delving into the nuances of trial court records, and whether those records should be partially or fully online, available only to parties and attorneys of record, or remain public but not online.
With over forty different case types used in Indiana to designate a myriad of substantive proceedings, and thousands of combinations of particular pleadings, motions, and orders that may be filed or entered in those proceedings, it is a prodigious undertaking—but one the Task Force is approaching methodically and thoughtfully to seek the best possible balance between transparency and privacy.
At its next meeting in June, the Task Force will also turn its attention to case financial records. It is expected to develop specific recommendations on making case-file documents available remotely to parties and lawyers who participate in e-filing, the perils of anonymous (non-login) online access, and the extent to which trial-court judgments, orders, or party filings should be made available remotely.