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On March 19, 2014 and May 23, 2014, in AOSC14-19, the Florida Supreme Court lifted the moratorium on online access to electronic court records by providing a number of technical requirements and a complex security matrix designed to balance reasonable access for the public and an individual's right to privacy. Click here to read the May order.
As part of the process of implementing the standards and security matrix, a statewide pilot program will monitor and coordinate all established clerk initiatives relating to online access to electronic court records. Specifically, each clerk or circuit court must apply to the Florida Courts Technology Commission's (FCTC) Access Governance Board, through the Office of the State Courts Administrator, for approval by the FCTC of its electronic records access system. After approval, the clerk or circuit court has 120 days to become compliant with all provisions of the administrative order while engaging in a 90-day monitoring period that includes monthly reporting. After that period, the clerk or circuit court must request the Court's approval to provide online access to electronic court records.
We have had many meetings in my office since the issuance of this order, striving to understand its provisions and planning for implementation. We submitted six applications for approval on July 22, 2014, which covered various applications through which we currently provide online access to court records. Many of you are users of the judicial website in Leon County; that was one application. We also submitted applications for our FTP bulk data site, our reports website, JIS (the county's criminal case maintenance application), Benchmark website (a website through which we will be providing judicial access), and our public website.
You may be wondering why my office would need to get approval for our public website, the judicial website, and other sites, when they seem to have been working just fine for you for many years. It is clear from the administrative order that security concerns about court records drove the recent administrative order. While my office believes that the current controls and processes are more than adequate, they are not consistent with the standards established by the administrative order. Accordingly, my office will be implementing additional controls to meet the new FCTC requirements to be able to continue to provide you with the access to which you've become accustomed.
One example of a change in control is with respect to attorneys that currently have access to our judicial website. The administrative order requires my office to get new user agreements from all current users so that the forms are notarized. Our existing agreements do not contain notarization and we will be contacting you soon to get such agreements.
FCTC security concerns regarding search criteria also present some problems. Currently, on our public website, in the online citations payment area, we allow a user to search by citation number, driver license number, last name, first name, and date of birth. The order does not permit searches by driver license number and we may be required to remove that search field. While I understand that customers may prefer that search parameter, especially if they have lost their citation and/or have a name like "Joe Smith", it is a security concern for the Court and we may have to modify our public website.
As you can see, this order has many far-reaching consequences statewide. While I have given you a couple of examples, there may be other results that affect your online access to records. One of the requirements is for us to inspect every filing for sensitive information and redact it prior to making it available electronically. We are evaluating the implications of this requirement and this may result in restricting access to only those cases where you are the attorney of record.
Clerks across the state are reviewing the requirements and seeking solutions to the issues raised by the administrative order. Clerks are committed to continuing to provide the greatest level of public access but also recognize that the administrative order will increase our costs to comply and there are no additional financial resources to support these requirements.
I will continue to share news on this topic as we implement and learn more, and I ask for your patience and understanding as we implement the Court's requirements.
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