[BreachExchange] Alabama’s online site for crime records sometimes includes victim information

[Audrey McNeil]

http://whnt.com/2017/04/23/alabamas-online-site-for-crime-records-sometimes-
includes-victim-information/

Tiffany Lawson’s ex-boyfriend kicked in her door, beat her and poured hot
cooking oil onto her face, back and legs in Birmingham, Alabama.

The 2013 attack replayed in her mind when she tried to sleep in the months
that followed, and left her with burns over half of her body. Her ex was
sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The Associated Press reached Lawson by phone this week, at the number
listed in her online case file at Alabama’s publicly accessible website for
court records. An AP review of other online case files found Social
Security numbers, home addresses and other personal information of rape
victims as well as children who have been molested.

Lawson bristled at the thought of victims’ personal information being so
readily available.

“I don’t think my address and phone number and things like that should be
in there,” Lawson said. “I think it should be the victims’ choice if they
want that information out there.”

But many crime victims in Alabama have no choice.

That is because the state’s online site for court records – Alacourt.com –
often doesn’t edit out personal information that might appear in court
documents.

In Phenix City, a former math teacher’s indictment on a charge of having
sex with a student is stamped “NOT PUBLIC RECORD,” with the student’s name
blacked out. But a search warrant application in the same file identifies
the 15-year-old boy by name.

The site also includes personal details about sexual assault victims at the
University of Alabama and other cases going as far back as 2007. Records
from a 2013 case even list the hospital bill for a rape victim identified
by name.

Most states remove or cover sensitive information about people before the
court records go online, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C.

Experts say it can be dangerous for victims to have their personal
information in such court files, and that sexual assault victims may be
reluctant to report crimes if they know they’re giving up their privacy.

“What survivors tell us is that the loss of privacy during criminal justice
is one of the things they fear most,” said Meg Garvin, executive director
of the National Crime Victim Law Institute.

An Alabama law says addresses, phone numbers and “other related
information” about victims contained in court files are not public records.
A link to the law is posted in a list of crime victims’ rights on the
attorney general’s website.

But Alabama’s court clerks don’t have the manpower to review every document
that’s filed with the courts, said Nathan Wilson, legal director of
Alabama’s Administrative Office of Courts.

“The court system is very concerned about identifying information appearing
in some court records,” Wilson said in statement Thursday.

Since the AP began its reporting this month, “efforts are underway to
remind those who file documents with the court that victim and private
information should be kept out of those documents,” he said.

Alacourt.com was launched in 2000 and is a partnership between the state of
Alabama’s trial courts and Mobile, Alabama-based On-Line Information
Services Inc., which hasn’t responded to multiple requests for comment.

The website can be accessed by anyone who registers for the site and pays a
fee. It’s available free of charge at computers in many Alabama county
courthouses.

Concerns about the site came to light this month, when federal prosecutors
accused a man of using Alacourt.com to obtain Social Security numbers of
about 43 people in an identity theft scheme. He has since been charged with
aggravated identity theft and conspiracy.

Each year, more than 100,000 new cases are electronically filed into the
online system from Alabama’s 67 counties, according to annual reports from
the Alabama Unified Judicial System. Some cases include dozens of
documents; others have hundreds.
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