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Implications of GDPR & CCPA on Public Records

By Jeff Cox
February 01, 2019

In the brave new world of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), staking out a safe harbor for republishing and retaining publicly available court records is critical for protecting the public's right to know the law and preventing criminals from hiding their crimes. Contrasted with GDPR, CCPA sets a crucial distinction between personal information and publicly available information obtained from government records, setting a workable balance between consumer privacy protections and the public's right to know and access public records.

In this article, we'll discuss the importance of securing a safe harbor for court records through reviewing an illustrative example of how a European Union (EU) citizen was able to force U.S. legal technology companies to remove and alter court records using GDPR. We'll also look at CCPA in light of US case law, and close on potential paths forward for GDPR on re-using “public sector information.”

The Real-World Impact of the GDPR on Court Records

In September of 2018, Michael Francois Bujaldon, a defendant in a real estate and securities fraud case involving $62 million of allegedly ill-gotten gains, contacted multiple legal technology vendors to demand deletion of his name from all dockets for his case. Using the sword and shield of GDPR's “right to be forgotten,” Bujaldon appears to have initially compelled PacerMonitor to remove his case (though it's now available on PacerMonitor) and forced PlainSite to remove his name from the docket within their site.

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