Make Sure the PDF Title of Your Document Doesn't Include Confidential Information (Such as a Pseudonymous Plaintiff's Name)

I recently ran across a case in which the plaintiff was a John Doe—but when I downloaded the Complaint, I saw the plaintiff's name as part of the tab name in my browser. It appears that the PDF for the filing was created with a title that contained the plaintiff's name (you can see a PDF document's title in Adobe by clicking ctrl-D). That in turn presumably stemmed from the original word processing document containing that title, maybe from a time before the plaintiff's lawyer thought the case should be litigated under a pseudonym.

In any event, a tip: If you're filing a document in a pseudonymized case, or in a case you want pseudonymized, check the PDF to make sure that the party's name doesn't appear in the title.

Comments

[William Cheswick]

This is only one way that such data can leak out. Improper redactions can leak very sensitive data. If really care, then submit photos or scans of the printer documents, so what you see is what they get.

Of course, photos of documents are not quite as useful in some cases, and may not meet the requirements of, say, the court. OCR can fix this, though it may have some errors that need to be checked.

[Dan Schiavetta]

By coincidence I almost made that mistake two minutes ago, when I was adding a special needs trust document for a minor as an exhibit to an infant compromise motion. Besides redacting the document itself you have to be careful what you call it.

[Charles Epperson]

If this happens, does anyone that sees it have to abide by the pseudonymity of the case, or does this mistake open up people to use the real names?

[JimM47]

Better yet, don't give your PDF documents titles at all.

It's very annoying when I download filings to work on things offline, and I give the files appropriate names, but then when I open up the PDFS, half the tabs in Acrobat say something like "LAWFIRM NAME DEFAULT TEMPLATE"

[SimonP]

I have to assume that the pseudonymous plaintiff in question is one pursuing a conservative-aligned, culture-war claim - that is, one of those cases that Eugene likes to comment on without saying anything about the merits of pseudonymity - because otherwise, Eugene would be quick to point us to the document and name the plaintiff.

[Davy C]

Do you go to baseball games and complain about how much you hate baseball?