Provides additional protection to judges and their family members under the Judicial Security Act
A11388 amends section 859 of the Judiciary Law, which is part of the Judicial Security Act, to expand privacy protections for judges and certain related individuals. The bill broadens the definition of “immediate family” to include domestic partners and former domestic partners, and it expands the categories of protected personal information to include additional family-related and financial identifiers, such as the identity of a present or former domestic partner and, in some cases, the names and addresses of schools or day care facilities attended by family members.
The bill also revises the process for judges and other eligible individuals to request suppression of personal information from employers, former employers, and covered third parties. It requires the request to identify, when known, the specific records containing the protected information and where in those records the information appears. It further authorizes notice by certified mail, email, or other reasonably effective means, and clarifies that the chief administrator of the courts is treated as the employer for certain state-paid judges and housing court judges. The bill adds procedures for withholding disclosure of a residential address for an adult family member only with that family member’s written consent, and it allows disclosure only under limited circumstances such as a notarized release, withdrawal of the request, death of the eligible individual, or a court order.
The bill would amend the Judiciary Law to strengthen confidentiality and anti-doxxing protections for judges, former judges, and certain federal judges in New York, along with their immediate family members when covered by a request. It imposes new obligations on employers, former employers, and other notified persons or entities to stop publishing protected information within 72 hours and to make reasonable efforts to remove it from websites they control. It also gives the chief administrator of the courts authority to develop procedures to prevent disclosure of protected information held by the Unified Court System.
The available context suggests broad support for the bill’s purpose, and the measure ultimately passed the Senate. The caption and text indicate a security- and privacy-focused update requested in part by the Unified Court System, which suggests institutional support for expanding protections for judges and their families. No committee transcript or recorded vote details were provided, so there is no evidence in the supplied materials of organized opposition or a divided vote.
The main points of potential contention are the scope of the privacy protections and the administrative burden on covered entities. The bill expands protected family relationships to include domestic partners and former domestic partners, and it reaches more categories of personal information, including financial data and school/day care locations. It also requires entities to identify and suppress information quickly after notice, which could raise concerns for publishers, data brokers, and others who maintain public records or online databases. A narrower issue is the new requirement that a family member over 18 must consent before a county clerk is asked to suppress that adult family member’s residential address, reflecting a balance between judge safety and the adult family member’s own privacy rights.