JCIT discussion exposes split over ‘confidential’ tagging; committee forms working group to resolve policy

Committee members spent a lengthy portion of the meeting on procedures and standards for marking documents “confidential,” what that means for electronic access and how local clerks and filers are applying the label.

Why it matters: as counties integrate their case-management systems with statewide services such as Research Texas, inconsistent local practices — and widespread use of a filer’s “confidential” checkbox — can effectively block public access without a court order. That raises questions about due process, uniformity and the technical handling of personally identifying information (PII).

Meeting participants described a pattern in some local jurisdictions where filers routinely mark forms or documents confidential (sometimes by pre‑stamped form templates) rather than seeking a judicial sealing order. That practice can leave public portals and automated research interfaces with files that are labeled confidential but lack the procedural safeguards and public notice that accompany a court‑ordered seal.

An Office of the Attorney General staff member, who identified themself as an OAG e‑filing liaison, told the committee they have long used non‑attorney staff to pull documents for the attorney general’s divisions; those staff have operational reasons to consult filings beyond the AG’s direct case work. That prompted questions about where OAG non‑attorney staff should be placed in the access matrix. The committee amended the draft roles matrix to avoid granting unchecked statewide access to OAG staff and instead rely on clerk designation or attorney association to determine access.

On technical safeguards, the committee reviewed how current redaction tools work: the filing user can run an automated suggestion engine to find PII and then must affirmatively redact it; JCIT staff said there is not yet a system‑wide automated scrub that removes confidential data without filer action. The transcript notes: “It does not scrub data that it finds confidential… the user is the one using that” to confirm redactions.

Committee members agreed there is no single local practice: some counties mark entire case types (for example, CPS or juvenile dockets) as restricted and do so in local rules; others leave redaction to filers. The Office of Court Administration (OCA) currently posts local rules but does not review or approve them, a procedural gap that committee members said complicates statewide consistency.

Action and next steps: the standards committee resolved to convene a working group to study “confidential” vs. “sealed” vs. PII/redaction rules and to gather sample documents from clerks to understand how local practice maps to system behavior. Committee members volunteered to participate; Patty Henry and several county clerks put their names forward. JCIT staff will request examples from clerks and prepare an options paper for the working group.

Selected quotes drawn verbatim from the meeting transcript: “I think we need to take up this whole confidential and process thing, particularly as we go into integration,” (Bob, Standards Committee chair). Attorney General staff: “I’ve been the agency’s liaisons for e filing since 2013… our legal assistants normally do a lot [of] pulling the documents and things like that.”

What the committee did not decide: whether to remove the filer’s ability to mark documents confidential at the point of filing, whether to require court review before a document is treated as confidential in statewide indexes, or what sanctions — if any — should apply to over‑marking. Those remain tasks for the newly formed working group.