S. Court lifts moratorium on online access to court records.

County clerks of court now have the option of providing online electronic access to court records under a Supreme Court administrative order lifting an earlier moratorium on such access.

"It does permit the clerk, if they chose to do so, to allow electronic access to court records," said Orange County Judge Lisa Munyon, chair of the Supreme Court's Florida Courts Technology Commission, which drew up the guidelines for electronic access.

The order was issued March 19 by Chief Justice Ricky Poison and adopts electronic access standards developed by the Florida Courts Technology Commission and the FCTC's Access Security Matrix. It will determine which records the public and various government agencies will have access.

The order will not mean immediate online access, as each county clerk of court must decide whether to allow access and, if so, develop an access plan, which must be tested and then approved by the FCTC.

"Manatee County is already doing it; they were approved after they did a pilot project [that provided the basis for the access matrix]," Munyon said. "I think there will be other clerks who will be applying pretty quickly. They have to go through the 90-day process to prove they can go through the redaction process."

In the order, Poison wrote, "The standards and matrix ... provide a carefully structured mechanism to facilitate appropriate, differentiated levels of access to court records to members of the general public and user groups with specialized credentials, and judges and courts and clerk's office staff, based on governing statutes and court rules."

The standards and matrix were based on a test program from Manatee Clerk of Court Chips Shore from 2007 to 2011, which provided online electronic access while protecting confidential information.

"As part of the process of implementing the standards and matrix, a statewide pilot program will monitor and coordinate all established clerk initiatives relating to online access to electronic court records. Under the pilot program, each clerk or circuit court will apply to FCTC's Access Governance Board, through the Office of the State Courts Administrator, for approval by the FCTC of its electronic records access system and then apply for approval to provide online access to electronic court records after establishing compliance with the requirements of the standards and matrix through a 90-day monitoring period," the order said. "As the certification process is implemented, the...