Via the National Association of Professional Background Screeners newsletter, it appears that Florida has decided to restore access to dates of birth in court records. As we posted earlier, this is an extremely important issue for performing accurate criminal checks. The date of birth is needed to prevent confusion between defendants with the same name, especially since access to social security numbers is becoming ever more restricted. Specifically, this is what is happening for Florida:
By a 5-4 vote, the committee voted to recommend to the Court that full dates of birth be available electronically as part of the progress docket information for defendants in criminal matters. The four voting “no” wanted full dates of birth for both criminal and civil parties…Phase I of the pilot should launch by mid-June. That is not the public access phase, but the court users phase.
It is not altogether clear to me if the pilot includes background check providers but I think that is likely soon.
The date of birth issue has popped up elsewhere as well. In Utah, the Daily Herald recently argued for keeping birth dates in public view. Their concern is analysis of voter rolls. In order to find voter fraud, the date of birth is needed to distinguish between the same person voting multiple times versus multiple people with the same name. It can also be used to identify dead people and felons who are not legally permitted to vote.
I am sure there are many other cases where mindlessly redacting the date of birth will cause harm, without a corresponding benefit. Florida should save its resources for cleaning up more dangerous online personal data, a project whose deadline was just extended from 2008 to 2011.