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Information Governance Engagement Area

Data Mining Means Always Having to Say You're Sorry

The rise of Internet databases means expunged records never really go away.

By Julie KayDaily, Business Review

In 1999, a 20-year old college student was arrested for petty theft in Miami-Dade County after stealing a shirt from J.C. Penney.

Like most first-time offenders, the young man completed a pretrial diversionary program, performed community service, paid a fine and got his case dismissed. The record was expunged. He never got into any more trouble with the law.

Seven years later, the man applied for a job and was turned down.

Curious about why, he checked his record on Westlaw, an Eagan, Minn.-based legal database company, and was shocked to find that the supposedly expunged record of his misdemeanor appeared on Westlaw's widely available computerized database. He immediately called his lawyer, Kenneth Hassett of Miami.

Hassett told the client, who did not want to be identified for this article, what he tells many of his clients who have called him with the same complaint -- that the computerized record systems of the Miami-Dade clerk of courts, Florida Department of Corrections and Florida Department of Law Enforcement are "not secure" and that expungement has become meaningless.

"In the electronic and Internet age, sealing or expunging in many cases just doesn't exist," he said.

The Miami-Dade County Enterprise Technology Services Department sells criminal records information to four data mining companies, including Atlanta-based ChoicePoint, the largest provider of data information in the country. The other three are Seisent, Court Venture and First American SafeRent.

The records sold include daily electronic bulletins of jail bookings and a biweekly file of all defendants charged with felonies or misdemeanors, according to Ronald Feingold, a county systems analyst.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Stanford Blake, administrative head of the court's criminal division, said it is inappropriate for the county to sell information about cases that were supposed to be expunged.