A victory for openness

Tulsa World: We applaud the Oklahoma Supreme Court for listening to knowledgeable stakeholders and heeding their concerns about redacting personal information from court records.

After an outcry from the media, law enforcement and business operators, the high court decided to drop most of the proposed rules that would have led to the redacting of personal information contained in public records — information that is crucial to many operations across the state.

The court had proposed partially redacting Social Security numbers, taxpayer identification numbers, birth dates, home addresses and other information routinely used by the media, law enforcement and businesses to identify or screen individuals.

Recently, the Supreme Court did away with most of those proposed elements and instead approved new rules allowing the inclusion of complete birth dates, home addresses and other personal information in court records.

In a concurring opinion, Chief Justice Steven Taylor wrote that the new rule “affirms the doctrine that (other than those sealed or closed by long-established law) every document filed with the court clerk is a public record. And this rule does not prohibit the inclusion of any information in any filed document.”

Partial redaction

The new rules will allow the partial redaction of Social Security numbers, taxpayer identification numbers, financial account numbers and driver’s license numbers.

The court’s decision was welcomed by all those who raised their voices in this debate. The decision will help ensure that innocent people are not ensnared in an unpleasant or even devastating turn of events.