Cal. R. 8.83
All electronic records must be made reasonably available to the public in some form, whether in electronic or in paper form, except sealed or confidential records.
If a court maintains the following records in electronic form, electronic access to these records must be provided at the courthouse, to the extent it is feasible to do so, but remote electronic access may not be provided to these records:
Notwithstanding (c)(2), the presiding justice of the court, or a justice assigned by the presiding justice, may exercise discretion, subject to (d)(1), to permit remote electronic access by the public to all or a portion of the public court records in an individual case if
With the exception of the records covered by (b)(1), electronic access to an electronic record may be granted only when the record is identified by the number of the case, the caption of the case, the name of a party, the name of the attorney, or the date of oral argument, and only on a case-by-case basis.
Bulk distribution may be provided only of the records covered by (b)(1).
If an electronic record to which electronic access has been provided is made inaccessible to the public by court order or by operation of law, the court is not required to take action with respect to any copy of the record that was made by a member of the public before the record became inaccessible.
Cal. R. Ct. 8.83
Advisory Committee Comment
The rule allows a level of access by the public to all electronic records that is at least equivalent to the access that is available for paper records and, for some types of records, is much greater. At the same time, it seeks to protect legitimate privacy concerns.
Subdivision (b). Courts should encourage availability of electronic access to court records at public off-site locations.
Subdivision (c). This subdivision excludes certain records (those other than the register, calendar, opinions, and certain Supreme Court records) in specified types of cases (notably criminal, juvenile, and family court matters) from remote electronic access. The committees recognized that while these case records are public records and should remain available at the courthouse, either in paper or electronic form, they often contain sensitive personal information. The court should not publish that information over the Internet. However, the committees also recognized that the use of the Internet may be appropriate in certain individual cases of extraordinary public interest where information regarding a case will be widely disseminated through the media. In such cases, posting of selected nonconfidential court records, redacted where necessary to protect the privacy of the participants, may provide more timely and accurate information regarding the court proceedings, and may relieve substantial burdens on court staff in responding to individual requests for documents and information. Thus, under subdivision (d), if the presiding justice makes individualized determinations in a specific case, certain records in individual cases may be made available over the Internet.
Subdivision (d). Courts must send a copy of the order permitting remote electronic access in extraordinary cases to: Legal Services, Judicial Council of California, 455 Golden Gate Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102-3688.
Subdivisions (e) and (f). These subdivisions limit electronic access to records (other than the register, calendars, opinions, and certain Supreme Court records) to a case-by-case basis and prohibit bulk distribution of those records. These limitations are based on the qualitative difference between obtaining information from a specific case file and obtaining bulk information that may be manipulated to compile personal information culled from any document, paper, or exhibit filed in a lawsuit. This type of aggregate information may be exploited for commercial or other purposes unrelated to the operations of the courts, at the expense of privacy rights of individuals.