Public records are documents or pieces of information that are not considered confidential and generally pertain to the conduct of government. Depending on jurisdiction, examples of public records includes information pertaining to births, deaths, marriages, and documented transaction with government agencies. Attitudes and expectations about what information should be made public have been studied.

History

Since the earliest organised

societies A society () is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. ...

, with

tax A tax is a mandatory financial charge or levy imposed on an individual or legal entity by a governmental organization to support government spending and public expenditures collectively or to regulate and reduce negative externalities. Tax co ...

ation, disputes, and so on, records of some sort have been needed. In ancient

Babylon Babylon ( ) was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-s ...

records were kept in

cuneiform writing Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

on clay tablets. In the

Inca The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts (, ), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The History of the Incas, Inca ...

empire of

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, which did not have writing, records were kept via an elaborate form of knots in cords, quipu, whose meaning has been lost. In

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's extent varies depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean ...

in the

Late Middle Ages The late Middle Ages or late medieval period was the Periodization, period of History of Europe, European history lasting from 1300 to 1500 AD. The late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period ( ...

public records included

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

records as well as records of birth, death, and marriage; an example is the 1086 ''

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

'' of

William the Conqueror William the Conqueror (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), sometimes called William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England (as William I), reigning from 1066 until his death. A descendant of Rollo, he was D ...

. The details of royal marriage agreements, which were effectively international treaties, were also recorded. The United Kingdom Public Record Office Act, which formalised record-keeping by setting up the

Public Record Office The Public Record Office (abbreviated as PRO, pronounced as three letters and referred to as ''the'' PRO), Chancery Lane in the City of London, was the guardian of the national archives of the United Kingdom from 1838 until 2003, when it was m ...

, was passed in 1838.

Public records

* Records of

law court Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a Socia ...

proceedings * Marriage records *

Mug shot A mug shot or mugshot (an informal term for police photograph or booking photograph) is a Portrait photography, photographic portrait of a person from the shoulders up, typically taken after a person is placed under arrest. The primary purpose ...

Voter registration In electoral systems, voter registration (or enrollment) is the requirement that a person otherwise Suffrage, eligible to Voting, vote must register (or enroll) on an electoral roll, which is usually a prerequisite for being entitled or permitted ...

Access to public records

Although public records are records of public business, they are not necessarily available without restriction, although

Freedom of Information legislation Freedom of information laws allow access by the general public to data held by national governments and, where applicable, by state and local governments. The emergence of freedom of information legislation was a response to increasing dissatis ...

(FOI) that has been gradually introduced in many jurisdictions since the 1960s has made access easier. Each government has policies and regulations that govern the availability of information contained in public records. A common restriction is that data about a person is not normally available to others; for example, the California Public Records Act (PRA) states that "except for certain explicit exceptions, personal information maintained about an individual may not be disclosed without the person's consent". For example, in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, when a couple fills out a

marriage license A marriage license (or marriage licence in Commonwealth spelling) is a document issued, either by a religious organization or state authority, authorizing a couple to marry. The procedure for obtaining a license varies between jurisdictions ...

application, they have the option of checking the box as to whether the

marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

is "confidential" (Record will be closed, and not opened to public once recorded) or "public" (record will become public record once recorded). Essentially, if the marriage record is public, a copy of the record can be ordered from the

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

in which the marriage occurred. In the United Kingdom, Cabinet papers were subject to the thirty-year rule: until the introduction of FOI legislation, Cabinet papers were not available for thirty years; some information could be withheld for longer. the rule still applies to some information, such as

minutes Minutes, also known as minutes of meeting, protocols or, informally, notes, are the instant written record of a meeting or hearing. They typically describe the events of the meeting and may include a list of attendees, a statement of the activit ...

of Cabinet meetings. Some companies provide access, for a fee, to many public records available on the Internet. Many of them specialize in particular types of information, while some offer access to different types of record, typically to professionals in various fields. Some companies sell software with a promise of unlimited access to public records, but may provide nothing more than basic information on how to access already available and generally free public websites. Each year news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and other interested groups sponsor "Sunshine Week." Sunshine Week occurs in mid-March, coinciding with

James Madison James Madison (June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison was popularly acclaimed as the ...

's birthday and National Freedom of Information Day on the 16th. The purpose of the week is to highlight the idea that "government functions best when it operates in the open." In many states, state legislatures are often exempt from public-records laws that apply to state executive officials and local officials. In 2016, the Associated Press made a request for the emails and daily schedules of state legislative leaders (speakers of state Houses and presidents of state Senates) in all 50 states; a majority denied the request.

Court records

Of particular significance was the evolution of the common-law right "to access court records to inspect and to copy". The expectation inherent in the common law right to access court records is that any person may come to the office of the clerk of the court during business hours and request to inspect court records, with almost instantaneous access. Such right is a central safeguard of the integrity of the courts. Any decision to conceal court records requires a sealing order. The right to access court records is also central to liberty: There is no conceivable way to exercise the Habeas Corpus right, deemed by the late Justice Brennan as "the cornerstone" of the United States Constitution, absent access to court records as public records. In the United States the

common law Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...

right to "access court records to inspect and to copy" was reaffirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in ''Nixon v Warner Communications, Inc'' (1978), where the court found various parts of the right to access court records as inherent to the First, Fourth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments. In the United States access to court records is governed by Civil Rights in the Amendments to the United States Constitution, not by the Freedom of Information Act. As court records become increasingly more accessible online, concerns about the undermining of private information has become a significant issue. In the past, obtaining court records required people to physically go to a courthouse and request documents. However, with the relative ease at which people can now access these records, highly sensitive information (i.e. victim names, social security numbers, etc.) are at risk of being publicly exploited.

In the United States

Access to U.S. national public records is guided by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Requests for access to records pursuant to FOIA may be refused by federal agencies if information requested is subject to exemption, or some information may be redacted (deleted). In addition to the national FOIA, all states have some form of FOI legislation. For example,

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

has the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA); in

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

the law is known as the Open Public Records Act (OPRA). There are many degrees of accessibility to public records between states, with some making it fairly easy to request and receive documents, and others with many exemptions and restricted categories of documents. One state that is fairly responsive to public records requests is New York, which utilizes the Committee on Open Government to assist citizens with their requests. A state that was fairly restrictive in how they respond to public records requests is

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, where the law formerly presumed that all documents are exempt from disclosure, unless they can be proven otherwise. This was changed by a 2008 bill that went into effect in 2009. The California Public Records Act (''California Government Code'' §§6250-6276.48) covers the

arrest An arrest is the act of apprehending and taking a person into custody (legal protection or control), usually because the person has been suspected of or observed committing a crime. After being taken into custody, the person can be question ...

and booking records of inmates in the State of California jails and prisons, which are not covered by First Amendment rights (

freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been r ...

and of the press). Public access to arrest and booking records is seen as a critical safeguard of liberty.

Uses of public records

With the advent of the Internet and the information age, access to public records in the United States to anyone who wishes to view them has dramatically increased. Third parties such as the

information broker A data broker is an individual or company that specializes in collecting personal data (such as income, ethnicity, political beliefs, or Geolocation and surveillance, geolocation data) or data about people, mostly from public records but sometime ...

industry make regular use of public records to compile readily accessible profiles on millions of people, and may make a profit from the service of recompiling and mining the data. Public record data is used for multiple purposes, such as ensuring that child support payments are made as determined by the courts, assisting

credit bureau A credit bureau is a data collection agency that gathers account information from various creditors and provides that information to a consumer reporting agency in the United States, a credit reference agency in the United Kingdom, a credit report ...

s in keeping accurate data and helping to pay

pension A pension (; ) is a fund into which amounts are paid regularly during an individual's working career, and from which periodic payments are made to support the person's retirement from work. A pension may be either a " defined benefit plan", wh ...

benefits to retirees.

Abuse of public records requests

U.S. election officials have reported an overwhelming increase in records requests since the 2020 election, primarily from election deniers attempting to disrupt the functioning of local and county election offices. Such requests tend to be unreasonably broad, repetitive, or based on misinformation, leading to what a Colorado official said amounts to "a denial-of-service attack on local government." Local election officials in Florida and Michigan have reported spending 25-70% of staff time in recent years on processing public records requests. In 2022, officials in Maricopa County, Arizona reported one request that required nearly half the election office’s staff to spend four days sorting and scanning 20,000 documents. A review of recent state laws by the Center for Election Innovation & Research found at least 13 states that have sought to protect election staff from the abuse of FOIA requests in several ways, such as creating publicly accessible databases that do not require staff assistance and giving election staff the authority to deny unreasonable or clearly frivolous requests.

Access to criminal records in the United States

Individual criminal histories are generally considered to be public records in the United States and are often accessed via criminal history

background check A background check is a process used by an organisation or person to verify that an individual is who they claim to be, and check their past record to confirm education, employment history, and other activities, and for a criminal record. The fr ...

s, but "access and use of

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

-maintained criminal history record information has been traditionally limited and controlled in large measure to protect the privacy of the individuals to whom the records pertain." The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act imposes "fair information-practice requirements by consumer reporting agencies that report public record information, such as criminal history records, for employment purposes", and some state consumer-protection laws impose more restrictive regulations. According to the Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press, in the United States, arrest records "are generally open to the public unless they concern an active or ongoing investigation. A few states restrict the information that can be obtained from an arrest record, especially when it concerns individuals who were never charged, were acquitted or had their records expunged. Again, the determination will often result in a balancing test comparing the public's interest in disclosure against the individual privacy interest." By contrast, protective custody and

juvenile delinquency Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior younger than the statutory age of majority. These acts would be considered crimes if the individuals committing them were older. The term ...

records are exempted from most state open-records laws, such that access is "limited to the juvenile, his or her parents or guardians, or other parties directly involved in a legal matter."

Destruction of public records

In early 2018, the National Archives put up a webpage
"Unauthorized Disposition of Federal Records"
to publish all instances of investigations into possible unauthorized destruction of records.

References

External links

Guides to Public Records
from ''UCB Libraries GovPubs''
Publications from the U.S. Government
from USA.gov
It Took a FOIA Lawsuit to Uncover How the Obama Administration Killed FOIA Reform
Vice News
Microsoft: Government Public Records Tracker from Eskel Porter Consulting

The Center for Public Integrity

Media coalition sues McCrory administration over records
WRAL
Delay game: The McCrory administration drags its feet on our public records lawsuit
IndyWeek {{DEFAULTSORT:Public Records Freedom of information in the United States Privacy