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Enhanced Notice of Attorney Redaction Responsibilities

Modifications to the Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system, soon to be available to all federal appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts, will strengthen the reminders to attorneys of their responsibility to redact private information from the documents they file.

The modifications reflect the Judiciary’s strong commitment to protecting private information in publicly accessible court records.

A message will be displayed when an attorney logs in to CM/ECF. The attorney will be required to acknowledge the reminder by checking a box on the last line of the reminder. The message also provides links to the Federal Rules regarding redaction.

In addition, another reminder message has been added to the screen where the attorney finalizes submission of the filed document. The message states: “Have you redacted?” No affirming message is required for that message.

The policy-making Judicial Conference of the United States, through its Privacy Subcommittee of the Rules Committee, has reviewed the language of the reminder messages.

The messages for each type of court refer to different Federal Rules, but each contains the language, “IMPORTANT NOTICE OF REDACTION RESPONSIBILITY: All filers must redact: Social Security or taxpayer-identification numbers; dates of birth; names of minor children; financial account numbers.”

The messages for district and appellate courts adds language to note that “in criminal cases, home addresses” also must be redacted.

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