Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian, was on the Michael Smerconish show this morning [10/17] discussing Practical Obscurity: Limited Access to Court Documents via the Internet. The Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Courts (AOPC) has crafted a public access policy covering case records. One of the issues, out of the many they are facing, is the privacy concern if the information is freely accessible on the Web. Dan informed the viewers about the wealth of public information currently available on the Web — visit www.searchsystems.net. Picking a county in Pennyslvania with a searchable opinion database, Dan was able to retrieve, without much effort, a family law that gave the party names, the child’s name, age, school attended, address of the mother and child, information that the father is incarcerated, the area where the mother and child were relocating, the future husband’s name and occupation, etc. Should this information be freely accessible on the Web or only available at the courthouse? You can weigh in at http://www.aopc.org/Index/PublicAccessPolicy/Default.asp.

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Submitted by: Ida Weingram, Head of Outreach Services
on October 16, 2005 - 11:00 pm

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