Redaction Requirements for Personal Information in Court Filings

Subject to specified exemptions, the Judicial Conference’s privacy policy requires that filers redact from documents filed with the court: 

1. all but the last four digits of an individual’s social security number or taxpayer identification number;
2. the month and day of an individual’s birth;
3. all but the initial letters of a known minor’s name;
4. all but the last four digits of a financial-account number; and
5. in criminal cases, all but the city and state of an individual’s home address.

Filers are responsible not only for ensuring adherence to this Judicial Conference policy, they are also responsible for:

• Securing a court order prior to redacting information beyond that specifically identified in the privacy rules; and
• Redacting private identifiers from transcripts of proceedings.