Public access to public records in electronic or compiled forms may pose a greater threat to privacy issues than disclosure of those same records as individual pieces. This includes bulk retrieval of public records for purposes of data mining. Users may query the court record system to receive mass records from a single query, such as all antitrust actions filed by a particular date or party. These records could easily be exported to another database or spreadsheet for personal or commercial use by the public. Court records may contain sensitive information, such as social security numbers, names and addresses of witnesses in criminal cases, or financial information in divorce cases.
Some states allow it, others don t.
There are no nationwide standards for public record access of court records. What may be considered public in one court, may be considered private in another. This also raises the issue for the courts to decide if they have the power to seal individual records or entire categories of records.