Center for Transparency & Privacy (AND Security)
Critically examining the inalienable rights of individuals and the legitimate interests of society.
Chief Justice Mead told members of the Maine State Bar Association that the Maine courts plan to roll out e-filing in the central Maine. Bangor Courts will be the first to go live in October.
Before then, the Maine State Bar Association will do some training for lawyers.
It is unclear how the public will become aware of these efforts.
The Bar talk can be found at the link below–the conversation begins at 14:26
For the matter of Avangrid Networks, Inc., et al. v. Secretary of State et al., an appeal from an order of the Superior Court (Cumberland County) dismissing Avangrid Networks’ complaint seeking to enjoin the Secretary of State from placing a citizen initiative to reject the New England Clean Energy Connect Transmission Project on the November 3, 2020, ballot. The Court invites briefs of amici curiae. Details on the procedure for the matter are available on the high-profile case page and in the procedural order issued by the Court.
https://www.courts.maine.gov/news_reference/high_profile/avangrid/index.shtml
“Under Maine’s constitution, judicial power is vested exclusively in the Supreme Judicial Court. Of course, with the exercise of such power comes certain responsibilities, one of which is to preserve the institutional integrity of the court system so that it can fulfill its mission “[t]o administer justice by providing a safe, accessible, efficient and impartial system of dispute resolution that serves the public interest, protects individual rights and instills respect for the law.”
As an integral part of our state government, the MJB has a duty to protect the personal information entrusted to the state courts by Maine citizens. While its exact contours might be difficult to define, that duty is firmly rooted in the Maine Constitution and the judicial branch’s institutional charge to maintain public trust and confidence in the state court system. It means that the courts should treat personal information in accordance with the expectations under which it was disclosed in the first place. Citizens rightfully have come to trust that the courts will handle their personal information discreetly, so that disclosure of the information will not later be used by others to harm them.
Preserving citizens’ trust in the state court system requires that the MJB adopt and implement digital court records access rules that maintain that trust, not destroy it. If the rules do not adequately protect peoples’ privacy, the public’s expectations of trust in the courts will be broken, de-incentivizing citizens from interacting with the court system.
Abandonment of the state courts in favor of private justice tribunals by the wealthy and others who have a choice whether to interact with the courts is one thing. Among other issues, it would leave the court system without powerful advocates. It is another thing entirely for many of the poor and most vulnerable people in our population for whom there is no real choice. They will be forced to use an underfunded court system lacking adequate privacy protection, and to do so at their own peril.
It will be a sad day if the digital transformation of the state courts causes Maine citizens to lose trust in the state’s judicial system.”
Read the full blog– Maintaining Public Trust in State Courts: Why Privacy Matters
The full series can be found at: The Privacy Law Perspectives Blog
In the third in a series of blog posts about digital court records access, privacy expert Peter Guffin explains why he thinks so.
Professor Guffin inquires why the SJC is not using technology solutions that appear to be offered by their selected vendor
He asks why the SJC is putting the burden on filers to identify and seek protection of information; and states,
“[r]elying on filers to serve the privacy gatekeeping function is fraught with peril and not good public policy. It will only serve to erode the public’s trust in the Maine court system.”
Read the full post: Rolling the Dice: How Not to Protect Privacy
https://www.privacylawperspectives.com/2020/06/04/rolling-the-dice-how-not-to-protect-privacy/
And the full series is available, here:
Portland Press Herald Article 6/1/20
As courts across the country have been forced to move online during the pandemic, issues relating to access abound. Citizen access to the courthouses has been limited, and public and media access to proceedings has been hampered as Maine courts scramble to keep cases moving and justice available during the COVID-19 scourge.
A coalition of press and civil liberties groups signed a letter that outlined suggestions for broader public access to court proceedings nationwide, like sharing dial-in information before court events and waiving fees for online access to documents.
“As we move into the next phase of the way that public institutions are responding to the pandemic, it is going to be important to take account of public access,” said Zachary Heiden, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine. “That’s true in the Legislature or any government bodies, and it’s especially true in the courts.”
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is tracking public access to judicial proceedings and so far has found that the response has been varied.
See full article from link below:
https://www.pressherald.com/2020/06/01/maine-courts-struggle-with-public-access-during-pandemic/
Find out in the second in a series of blog posts related to transparency and privacy in digital court records authored by law professor and local attorney, Peter Guffin.
“Given the significant risk of harm to individuals stemming from data re-identification,” the author states, “it is imperative that the SJC account for data identifiability in determining which information in court records will be made accessible to the public through its soon-to-be-launched digital system. Data identifiability is a factor wholly separate and distinct from the sensitivity of data. It exists in varying degrees along the de-identification spectrum.”
More about the spectrum and why the Supreme Judicial Court is being asked to take a practical, risk-based approach to de-identification, aligning itself with most, if not all, of the privacy regulatory regimes in the U.S. as it moves the Maine courts into a digital state can be found in Professor Guffin’s blog post:
Visit the Privacy Law Perspectives Blog for additional posts
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court is seeking public comment on the Maine Rules of Electronic Court Systems. The deadline for submissions is 4:00 pm EST on June 4, 2020.
More information and a copy of the Rules can be found on the court system’s website.
https://www.courts.maine.gov/news/article.html?id=3764980
https://www.courts.maine.gov/rules/amendments/2020_mr_03_recs.pdf
https://www.courts.maine.gov/rules/text/mrecs_2020-12-14.pdf
https://www.courts.maine.gov/rules_adminorders/rules/proposed/2020-05-21_mrecs/notice.shtml
“[i]n today’s big data world, given the sophistication of data handlers, it is well-recognized that de-identification alone is not enough to prevent re-identification of individuals, and the SJC’s reliance on it promotes a false sense of security. The risk of re-identification of individuals from purportedly de-identified databases is significant. ….
In its proposed electronic court records access rules, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) imposes on litigants new and extensive filing obligations, including requiring litigants to redact certain categories of sensitive personal information. Regardless of what one might think about the wisdom of placing this burden on litigants, it is important to ask what the SJC hopes to achieve by this requirement. Even assuming full compliance, which is doubtful, redaction as a de-identification technique, without more, would be wholly inadequate to protect the privacy of Maine citizens. ….
In crafting rules addressing electronic court records access, given the significant risk of re-identification, the SJC will need to do much more than simply impose redaction responsibility on litigants if it hopes to protect the privacy of Maine citizens.”
See the full post below
This post is part of a series examining privacy and transparency issues in the context of public access to digital court records building on Peter Guffin’s essay “Digital Court Records Access, Social Justice and Judicial Balancing: What Judge Coffin Can Teach Us”
The full series can be found at:
The Privacy Law Perspectives Blog
| In his essay Peter Guffin, Professor and Pierce Atwood Privacy & Data Security Practice Group Chair, urges the Maine Supreme Judicial Court to embrace the rights-sensitive balancing process long-advanced by Judge Frank M. Coffin, former chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, one of Maine’s foremost advocates for justice who died in 2009 and whose centennial birth was celebrated last year. Guffin argues that Judge Coffin’s judicial philosophy, even though the product of a different era, is enduring and, if embraced today by the Supreme Judicial Court, would significantly improve the quality and effectiveness of its decision-making process in determining court rules that appropriately balance the rights of the individual against the interests of the state, thus engendering increased public trust and confidence in its decision. |
The Full Volume 72 No. 1 (2020) is available from the Recent Issue Link below: https://mainelaw.maine.edu/academics/journals/maine-law-review/recent-issue/
University of Maine System Chancellor Dannel Malloy appointed Leigh Ingalls Saufley as the eighth dean of the University of Maine School of Law. Saufley was selected after an extensive national search for the Law School’s next leader and began her service leading Maine’s only law school on April 15.
More on the University of Maine School of Law’s website: