From EPIC.org:
EPIC has filed a “friend of the court” brief”, urging the New Jersey Supreme Court preserve the value of expungement and allow a privacy case to go forward. In G.D. v. Kenny, a New Jersey court dismissed a privacy claim involving publication of information about a prior criminal act, even though the state had issued an expungement order. In the brief, EPIC argued that, “data mining companies ignore judicial determinations and attempt to make conviction records live forever,” however, “after someone has been rehabilitated, having paid the prescribed debt to society, he or she should not be penalized in perpetuity.” For more information, see EPIC: Expungement and EPIC G.D. v. Kenny.
It is rather depressing to see EPIC taking such a anti-speech position. An expungement not based on suspected or actual innocence does not render the fact of conviction any less accurate or misleading. People should not have to fear liability when they accurately report information about others that they obtained from public records. An expungement does not give you the right to erase the memories of others. There is nothing misleading about reporting that someone was convicted of a crime if there is no evidence to suggest the conviction was erroneous.
In some sense, this reminds me of the case involving Wikipedia and a German court order that said that no one could publish the name of convicted murderers who had done their time and had been reintegrated into society.
In this case, I think the lower court probably made the correct decision and I’m not so sure I agree with EPIC completely.