Peter Guffin Submits Written Comments Regarding Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s Proposed Digital Court Records Access Rules

While recognizing that privacy and transparency issues are critically important to Maine citizens, Firm Privacy & Data Security Practice Group Chair Peter J. Guffin finds it “troubling” that the SJC has “provided to the public and members of the Bar only scant details regarding its new digital case management system and the SJC’s plans with respect to implementation of the system.”

As with the “now defunct” Digital Records Access Act, which the SJC proposed earlier this year, Peter believes the Rules “fail to address a number of privacy, transparency, data security, and access-to-justice issues and raise many more issues and questions than they answer.”

Of particular concern is the lack of any “comprehensive study” that examines the impact of implementing digital court record systems in other states in regards to “privacy rights and interests of individuals,” and whether allowing the public to access court records online “unduly interferes with or disproportionately harms the marginalized and most vulnerable persons in our society, including the unrepresented, the poor, minorities, children, and victims of domestic abuse, sexual assault, and other crimes.”

Please click here to read all of Peter’s written comments.

Similarly, firm attorney Vivek J. Rao andformer associate Krystal D. Williams submitted written comments, noting that the proposed Rules “fail to provide a comprehensive framework for public access to digital court records and unnecessarily create risks of privacy harm for persons who come to the court seeking to protect their rights.”

Please click here to read all of Vivek and Krystal’s written comments.