Pennsylvania courts have released a series of videos that explain the judiciary’s new policy for protecting confidential information and documents in public court filings with the trial and appellate courts.
The new Public
Access Policy of the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania: Case Records ofthe Appellate and Trial Courts is effective on Jan. 6, 2018. This policy affects everyone – including attorneys – filing cases in Philadelphia Municipal Court (excluding the Traffic Division), Common Pleas, Commonwealth, Superior and Supreme Courts.
The policy’s goal is to ensure that court records are open and accessible to the public while also safeguarding personal identifiers and sensitive information – such as social security numbers and tax returns – that may be contained in documents filed with those courts.
The new video series highlights:
- how to file confidential documents
- how to protect certain pieces of confidential information
- how to access court records
Anyone filing court documents in the trial and appellate courts is responsible for safeguarding information in the documents they file with the courts. Courts may impose appropriate sanctions upon a party or attorney for failing to comply with the new policy.
Before submitting a filing, it is important to watch the video series and read the public access policy and related filing and educational information available at www.pacourts.us/public-records