Does the CCPA require the Open Bankruptcy Project to delete information from a republished bankruptcy docket?

No. California Civil Code Section 1798.140(v)(2) defines 'publicly available' to include 'information that is lawfully made available from federal, state, or local government records.' PACER bankruptcy filings fall within that exemption, so CCPA's right-to-delete does not apply to records republished from the public bankruptcy docket.

How can a debtor have personal identifiers redacted from a bankruptcy filing?

Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9037(d) authorizes the originating bankruptcy court to order redaction or restricted access to filings containing protected personal identifiers. Once the underlying docket reflects the court's order, the Open Bankruptcy Project's mirror updates accordingly on its next regular pull.

Can the Open Bankruptcy Project remove a page from Google search results?

No. Decisions about whether and how Google indexes or displays a particular URL are made independently by Google. The Open Bankruptcy Project does not control search engine indexing and cannot make commitments about what appears in third-party search results.

Public-Record Deletion Requests - Open Bankruptcy Project

Scope

The Open Bankruptcy Project (OBP) operates public-records mirrors of two categories of federal records: (1) federal bankruptcy court dockets, drawn from PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) and the RECAP archive; and (2) FOIA-released U.S. Small Business Administration lending data (Paycheck Protection Program and COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan recipient datasets). From time to time, the project receives requests to delete individual records, references, or index pages from these surfaces. This page describes how OBP evaluates and responds to those requests.

OBP indexes and republishes information that is already part of the public federal record. Typical surfaces include:

Bankruptcy case-index pages organized by district, court, and chapter
Bankruptcy docket-level metadata sourced from PACER and RECAP (case number, filing date, debtor name, chapter, judge, trustee)
SBA PPP loan recipient pages organized by state (borrower name, loan amount, approval date, NAICS code, lender, forgiveness status)
SBA EIDL loan recipient pages organized by state (borrower name, loan amount, approval date, program type)
Aggregate statistical and pattern analysis built from these records

OBP does not collect, host, or publish private personal information beyond what is already filed of record on PACER or released by SBA under FOIA. Sensitive identifiers such as Social Security numbers, full account numbers, dates of birth, and minor children's names are excluded by default through Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9037-aligned filtering. SBA borrower street addresses present in the source datasets are likewise not republished on OBP pages even though they appear in the SBA's own record.

Legal Posture

OBP republishes lawfully obtained public court records. Most consumer privacy frameworks expressly exempt this category of information from deletion rights:

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). California Civil Code § 1798.140(v)(2) defines "publicly available" to include "information that is lawfully made available from federal, state, or local government records." PACER filings fall squarely within that exemption. CCPA's right-to-delete provisions therefore do not reach republished court-record data.
Other state privacy frameworks (Virginia VCDPA, Colorado CPA, Connecticut CTDPA, Utah UCPA, Oregon OCPA, and analogous statutes) carry materially identical public-records carve-outs.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Article 6(1)(e) and Recital 154 recognize the lawful processing of public-register information; Article 17(3)(b) and (e) preserve such processing against erasure requests in cases of public-task processing or legal claims.
Section 230 framework. Republishers of public-court records have substantial protection under existing federal law against compelled removal absent a court order.

OBP cannot, accordingly, treat a private demand letter — whether styled as a CCPA request, a GDPR request, a state-privacy request, or a generalized request "to delete personal data" — as creating a legal duty to remove information drawn from the public bankruptcy docket.

OBP also cannot make commitments regarding (a) decisions made independently by Google or other search engines about whether to index particular URLs, or (b) the contents of future PACER pulls, which lawfully refresh from the same originating dockets.

Process for Actual Remedies

If a debtor or their counsel believes information on the underlying federal docket itself should be sealed, redacted, or restricted, the appropriate procedural path is in the originating bankruptcy court rather than to OBP:

Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9037(d) authorizes the court to order redaction or restricted access to filings containing protected personal identifiers (Social Security numbers, financial account numbers, dates of birth, names of minors). A motion under Rule 9037(d) operates on the official docket of record. If granted, OBP's next regular pull mirrors the corrected version of the docket in the ordinary course.
Sealing motions under 11 U.S.C. § 107(b) and (c) are available in narrow circumstances involving trade secrets, scandalous matter, or specifically protected information.
Rule 9018 governs protective orders in bankruptcy proceedings.

OBP encourages debtors and counsel to pursue these in-court remedies where applicable. Once the underlying docket reflects the court's order, OBP's mirror updates accordingly on the next regular pull.

For SBA PPP and EIDL loan records, the underlying datasets were released by the U.S. Small Business Administration in response to FOIA litigation (Wash. Post v. SBA, D.D.C. 20-cv-2961; N.Y. Times v. SBA, S.D.N.Y. 20-cv-9136; Sun-Sentinel v. SBA). Borrowers who believe SBA's published record itself contains an error may contact the SBA FOIA office (sba.gov/foia) regarding the source dataset. Once SBA's own published record reflects a correction, OBP's mirror updates accordingly on its next refresh cycle. OBP's republication of FOIA-released government data carries the same protection under Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469 (1975) and Florida Star v. B.J.F., 491 U.S. 524 (1989) that applies to bankruptcy-docket republication.

What OBP Will Do

OBP will, on receipt of a credible report:

Investigate any allegation that an OBP page contains personal identifiers that should not have been included under the project's Rule 9037-aligned filtering and correct any such error promptly.
Investigate any allegation that an OBP page contains a factual error sourced from a misread of the underlying docket and correct any such error promptly.
Mirror updates to the underlying docket on the next regular PACER pull cycle.

What OBP Will Not Do

OBP will not, on the basis of a private demand alone:

Remove case-index pages or docket-level metadata that accurately reflect the public federal bankruptcy record.
Suppress aggregate research findings or pattern analyses built from public-record data.
Issue removal or recrawl requests to Google or other search engines regarding URLs that lawfully republish public-record data.
Commit that future PACER pulls will not refresh the same docket information.

Contact

Reports of factual errors or apparent personal-identifier inclusions may be directed to info@openbankruptcyproject.org. Inquiries about specific docket entries should additionally be raised with the originating bankruptcy court.

Effective Date: May 9, 2026