Rule 5.2 - Privacy Protection for Filings Made with the Court(a) REDACTED FILINGS. Unless the court orders otherwise, a party or nonparty must redact, in an electronic or paper filing with the court, an individual's social-security number, taxpayer-identification number, driver's license or non-driver's license identification card number, and birth date; the name of an individual known to be a minor; and a financial-account number, except that a party or nonparty making the filing may include the following: (1) the acronym "SS#" where the individual's social-security number would have been included;(2) the acronym "TID#" where the individual's taxpayer-identification number would have been included;(3) the acronym "DL#" or "NDL#" where the individual's driver's license or non-driver's license identification card number would have been included;(4) the year of the individual's birth;(5) the minor's initials; and(6) the last four digits of the financial-account number.(d) FILINGS MADE UNDER SEAL. The court may order that a filing be made under seal without redaction. The court may later unseal the filing or order the person who made the filing to file a redacted version for the public record.(e) PROTECTIVE ORDERS. For good cause, the court may by order in a case: (1) require redaction of additional information; or(2) limit or prohibit a nonparty's remote electronic access to a document filed with the court.(f) ADDITIONAL UNREDACTED FILING UNDER SEAL.(1)Motion to File an Unredacted Copy Under Seal. Except as provided in Rule 5.2(f)(2), a person who makes a redacted filing and wishes to file an additional unredacted copy must file a motion to file an unredacted copy under seal. If granted, the court must retain the unredacted copy as part of the record.(2)Name Change Applications. A person filing an application under Rule 205 (name change) must file an unredacted copy of the application under seal.(g) OPTION FOR FILING A REFERENCE LIST. A filing that contains redacted information may be filed together with a reference list that identifies each item of redacted information and specifies an appropriate identifier that uniquely corresponds to each item listed. The list must be filed under seal and may be amended as of right. Any reference in the case to a listed identifier will be construed to refer to the corresponding item of information.(h) WAIVER OF PROTECTION OF IDENTIFIERS. A person waives the protection of Rule 5.2(a) as to the person's own information by filing it without redaction and not under seal.(i) RESPONSIBILITY TO REDACT. The responsibility for redacting these personal identifiers rests solely with the person or entity making the filing.COMMENT TO 2017 AMENDMENTS
This rule is similar to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2 except that: 1) section (a) has been modified to require protection of driver's license and non-driver's license identification card numbers; 2) section (a) requires parties to redact entirely socialsecurity numbers and taxpayer-identification numbers, allowing only the acronyms "SS#" and "TID#," respectively; 3) section (b) has been omitted, removing exemptions to provide greater protection for identifiers; 4) section (c) has been omitted as inapplicable; 5) section (f) has been modified to require a motion where a person wishes to file an unredacted copy except that a person filing a name change application must file an unredacted version under seal; and 6) section (i) was added to make clear that the clerk is not required to review filings for compliance with this rule.
The modifications to section (a) were made because the Superior Court was concerned that filing portions of social-security numbers and taxpayer-identification numbers might increase the risk of identity theft by making the critical portions of these numbers readily accessible on the internet.
As used in this rule, the phrase "financial-account number" is intended to include credit and debit card numbers.
A party may move to seal documents or other information not covered under this rule by using the procedures described in Rule 5 -III.