Courts office stops selling large volumes of criminal records, saying companies misuse them

News & Observer ^ | 1/05/04 | MATTHEW EISLEY

[Libloather]

Records by the batch on hold
Courts office stops selling large volumes of criminal records, saying companies misuse them
By MATTHEW EISLEY, Staff Writer
Monday, January 5, 2004 12:00AM EST

The agency that runs North Carolina's courts is cutting off a source of public information about criminal cases because, it says, private companies that buy and resell the data for personal background checks are misusing it.

The data will still be available in another, more expensive form.

Some of the companies that collect and resell the electronic information, commonly used to check the criminal histories of job and housing applicants, are protesting that the decision by the Administrative Office of the Courts to quit providing batches of criminal records violates the state's Public Records Law.

"It appears to me that people within the AOC believe that they are above the Public Records Law of North Carolina," Rob Gundling, president of a Brea, Calif. company called Court Ventures, said in an interview.

The AOC says resellers of the public information have brought the shutdown on themselves. Some buyers aren't updating the information properly, so they wind up disclosing information about convictions that have been legally "expunged" -- erased as if they never happened.

"We've had a number of very upset people call AOC who have lost their jobs," said Leah Bryant, the agency's administrator for applications development. "We want to make sure that we safeguard people's privacy, but we can't do that once it is out of our hands."

The disclosure of expunged records "is bringing the judicial branch of North Carolina into disrepute," said a letter the agency's chief information officer, Cliff Layman, sent Dec. 15 to 19 AOC data customers.

What's more, some companies are mixing up court information, falsely reporting criminal records for people who don't have them, Layman's letter said.

Besides hurting innocent people, it said, those mistakes lead to angry calls to the AOC and local courthouses, where busy staffers don't have time to correct the private companies' mistakes.

So starting Feb. 1, AOC plans to stop selling criminal information in big chunks. For several years, the agency has sold large one-time downloads of all state criminal records going back for years, and also daily updates.

AOC Director John Kennedy said the agency probably will lose about $100,000 of the $1.7 million it makes a year selling court data.

There is a backup.

The agency also provides immediate online access to individual criminal records, which allows the companies to check up on prospective employees, tenants, babysitters, even dates.

AOC will continue providing criminal information one person at a time, which it says is always current and accurate, unlike the one-shot database snapshots, which grow stale.

State law says that "public records and public information compiled by the agencies of North Carolina government or its subdivisions are the property of the people." The public can get copies free or for the actual cost of producing them, the law says.

In an e-mail message to Pamela Best, an AOC lawyer, Gundling said the agency's move to quit selling the large data batches "appears to be a clear-cut violation of the public records statute."

Best's response to Gundling was, "Our decision to terminate access to data extracts was made after due consideration of the Public Records Law."

The Public Records Law says nothing about how people can use public information.

The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, however, allows fines and state or federal lawsuits against companies that provide false information, including court records, during employment or housing screening.

"I'm sure accidents do happen," Gundling said. "We're all concerned about errors. But there's a procedure for complaining and correcting them."

The court agency will continue selling civil information about evictions and tax liens after it cuts off the criminal databases.

But for companies that resell the information, paying 13 cents per computer page view to check individual criminal records one at a time will take longer and cost more than buying the large databases.

For some users, it won't be a feasible replacement.

Gundling is organizing opposition to the move among other buyers and resellers of public court information -- who, the AOC notes, have made a lot of money off the old arrangement since the agency began selling public data three years ago.

AOC officials might be willing to compromise and avoid a lawsuit. They have scheduled a meeting with their data customers for Tuesday, at the request of several of the companies.

[Libloather]

The agency also provides immediate online access to individual criminal records, which allows the companies to check up on prospective employees, tenants, babysitters, even dates.

Dang...

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[unixfox]

The data will still be available in another, more expensive form.

I'm sure that will stop the abuse. < /sarcasm >

[PAR35]

The data will still be available in another, more expensive form

Exactly what I had cut out for my comment. It's not about privacy, it's about more money for the government.

[supercat]

I'm sure that will stop the abuse. < /sarcasm >

Well, it can't do much to stop the abuse of what's already out there, but the basic principle is that if it is to be legally possible for a person's records to be expunged, it must be possible to (1) expunge all copies of those records, or (2) check all attempts to access records, and ensure that records that are supposed to be expunged are not given out. The only way the state can ensure these functions are performed is by doing them itself.