Cal. R. 8.84
Electronic access to records required under this article must be provided by means of a network or software that is based on industry standards or is in the public domain.
Unless electronically certified by the court, a court record available by electronic access is not the official record of the court.
Electronic access to court records may be conditioned on:
The court must give notice of these conditions, in any manner it deems appropriate. Access may be denied to a member of the public for failure to comply with either of these conditions of use.
The court must give notice of the following information to members of the public accessing its records electronically, in any manner it deems appropriate:
A privacy policy must be posted on the California Courts public-access website to inform members of the public accessing its electronic records of the information collected regarding access transactions and the uses that may be made of the collected information.
Cal. R. Ct. 8.84
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.