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"The commonwealth court system&rsquo;s administrative wing is seeking input on proposed amendments to the policy concerning electronically stored records in the judiciary&rsquo;s case management systems.<br /><br />The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts made the announcement in a Feb. 6 news release.<br /><br />&ldquo;The proposed amendments expand the Supreme Court&rsquo;s long-standing tradition of providing online access to court records while recognizing appropriate restrictions on personal data that could jeopardize an individual&rsquo;s privacy and safety or subject them to identity theft,&rdquo; Court Administrator Zygmont A. Pines said in a statement.<br /><br />The most significant proposed amendment, the release states, concerns magisterial district court civil and landlord/tenant cases on the judiciary&rsquo;s website that contain the litigants&rsquo; full addresses in an effort to distinguish the individuals from others with similar names in densely populated areas.<br /><br />Birthdates and other personal &ldquo;identifiers&rdquo; are not traditionally included in these types of case filings.  All other cases aside from the aforementioned ones will continue being posted online with the partial addresses of litigants &ndash; in this case municipality, state and Zip Code &ndash; since those cases have birthdate information, which can help distinguish people with similar names, the news release states.<br /><br />Other proposed amendments to case filings as being recommended by the AOPC include having the judiciary&rsquo;s Electronic Case Record Public Access Policy exclude access to images of documents filed and stored in state court management systems, and releasing additional case data if the request meets &ldquo;approved academic, government and professional standards,&rdquo; and the information does not identify specific people or pose safety or security risks to individuals, the news release states.<br /><br />The AOPC will seek input on the proposed changes during a 30-day public comment period that will end on March 5.  The full list of proposed changes can be viewed at <a href=\"http://www.pacourts.us\">www.pacourts.us</a>.<br /><br />Pines, the state court administrator, said in his statement that members of the public last year accessed more than 39 million magisterial district, Common Pleas and appellate court records for free.<br /><br />&ldquo;In addition, the AOPC provided 397 customized bulk court records to government entities for free,&rdquo; he said."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://pennrecord.com/stories/510551914-administrative-office-of-pa-courts-seeks-inputs-on-proposed-electronic-case-filing-changes>