An Act to amend and reenact §§ 16.1-69.54:1 and 17.1-208 of the Code of Virginia, relating to court records; aggregated case data; request by attorney for the Commonwealth exempted.
HB567 amends Virginia law governing access to district court records and aggregated, nonconfidential case data. The bill keeps the existing process for requesting nonconfidential records from district court clerks, but clarifies that requests for aggregated case data from the Supreme Court’s Executive Secretary must be made to that office and may not include names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, or images of individual case files unless otherwise authorized. It also continues to prohibit resale, reposting, or redistribution of such data to third parties, while allowing the Executive Secretary to deny requests to ensure compliance with those limits.
The bill creates a specific exemption for attorneys for the Commonwealth acting in the performance of their duties. For those requests, the Executive Secretary must approve access to aggregated case data for cases within the prosecutor’s jurisdiction, and may include names, dates of birth, and the last four digits of Social Security numbers if requested. Any such identifying information may not be further disseminated unless redacted. The bill also preserves existing authority for clerks and the Executive Secretary to require written requests, identify records with reasonable specificity, charge actual costs, require deposits, and decline to create new records or nonstandard report formats.
HB567 amends §§ 16.1-69.54:1 and 17.1-208 of the Code of Virginia, affecting how district court records and aggregated case data are requested, produced, and restricted. It strengthens confidentiality and redistribution limits for public requests while carving out a mandatory access pathway for Commonwealth’s attorneys seeking data to carry out prosecutorial duties. The bill also reinforces cost-recovery rules and response deadlines for clerks and the Executive Secretary, without requiring the creation of new records or new report formats.
The available record shows the bill was enacted into law and approved as Chapter 172, with no committee transcript or recorded vote details provided. Based on the text, the measure appears to have been a technical but policy-relevant update to court-records access rules, balancing public-record access with privacy protections and law-enforcement needs. The inclusion of a mandatory exemption for attorneys for the Commonwealth suggests support for prosecutorial access to data, while the broader restrictions indicate continued concern about privacy and secondary use of court data.
The main point of contention is likely the tension between transparency and privacy. Public access to aggregated court data is limited by prohibitions on including personal identifiers and on redistributing the data, while attorneys for the Commonwealth receive a special exemption that allows access to identifying information for cases in their jurisdiction. Another possible issue is the Executive Secretary’s discretion to deny requests and the bill’s limits on creating new records or formats, which may affect data users, researchers, and vendors seeking broader or more customized access.