The website (Wisconsin Circuit Court Access) provides access to certain public records of the circuit courts of Wisconsin. The information displayed is an exact copy of the case information entered into the Consolidated Court Automation Programs (CCAP) case management system by court staff in the counties where the case files are located. The court record summaries provided by the system are all public records under Wisconsin open records law sections 19.31-19.39 of the Wisconsin Statutes.
WCCA was created in response to an increasing number of requests for court records from district attorneys, sheriffs’ departments, and other court business partners. Title companies, abstractors, members of the media and the general public have also benefited from WCCA. Many have come to rely on WCCA as their primary means of accessing circuit court data.
Since WCCA was first implemented on January 1, 1992 in Vilas County, WI it has steadily expanded to all the Wisconsin Counties. The last County that joined the online system was Portage County in 2008. The website receives considerable traffic. Currently the site averages about a million data requests a day. The site also continues to generate privacy concerns.
Wisconsin's Blue Book 2005-2006 says that Wisconsin was the first state to implement such a website. The Blue Book says that the original group gathered to design and 'go live' with the online legal website but failed to take into consideration Constitutional rights of privacy of Wisconsin's citizens. While other states continued to enjoy their right privacy rights of personal data, Wisconsin Citizen's data was not only posted for all Wisconsin to see but the entire World. The Wisconsin Blue Book also states that a director was not appointed to oversee privacy issue concerning the website until the fall of 2005, thirteen years after the initial posting or 'going live' with the website in Villas County, WI on January 1, 1992. Although, other states have followed Wisconsin's example and have posted their own similar websites. However, Wisconsin's website is like no other state in that it posts more personal data, sealed case data and posts data prior to conviction which negates the 'due process stage' which is a Constitutional right. Also, the data remains on the World Wide Web indefinitely thus not allowing a citizen to ever start over again after paying his/her debt to society.
The website is also used to discriminate in the hiring process. Despite the fact that the opening page of the website clearly posts a warning that informs the user that the website is not to be used for discriminatory purposes and if it is the user could face a fine of a thousand dollars, it is most often not enforced. The website is used to discrimination by corporations from other states and even from other Countries.
Read more about Wisconsin Circuit Court Access: Oversight, Privacy Concerns, Potential For Abuse, Case Types
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