court information center

Effective Date: 04/15/2014

Revised Date: 10/08/2021

Approved Date: 10/08/2021

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Purpose: To establish the minimum security requirements needed to protect judiciary information assets in conformance with statutes, regulations and rules. Security is needed to protect the judiciary’s electronic information systems from unauthorized access, modification and destruction, and to ensure authenticity, integrity, confidentiality and availability of the judiciary’s electronic information systems. 

Policy: Inactivity controls shall apply to judiciary network users, unless exempt, to protect against unauthorized system usage and content viewing by blocking access to the computer or portable digital devices following 15 minutes of inactivity. Public access terminals are excluded from this policy.  

Benefits

1. Protect against unauthorized disclosure of confidential information.
2. Protect against unauthorized system usage.
3. Active application sessions remain active and available upon screen unlock.
4. Reduce system resource usage by computers inactive for an extended period of time.  

Procedure
Judiciary Network Users:

• Shall lock the computer (Ctrl + Alt + Del) and press Enter or log-out before leaving his or her assigned computer.
• Shall not disable inactivity controls established in this policy.

Office of State Courts Administrator Technicians and Local IT Managers:

• Shall create a group policy that will enable the screen saver lock on any computer as defined in this policy.
• Shall enable an inactivity passcode for portable digital devices accessing or containing judiciary information, including electronic mail, in accordance with passcode requirements in policy 200.03.
• Shall create a group policy that will automatically log off users after an 18-hour period of inactivity.
• Shall maintain a list and separate group policy for computers that have received an exemption as set forth in this policy.

Exemption Process

• Judiciary appointing authorities or judicial officers may submit in writing a help desk request for a computer or computers assigned to him or her to be excluded from this policy. The help desk request shall be submitted to the Office of State Courts Administrator’s help desk or the local IT help desk.
• All other judiciary network users must receive written approval from their presiding judge, chief judge or state court administrator to exempt a computer or computers from this policy. All requests for approval shall include the justification for the exemption. The user must submit the approved request to the Office of State Courts Administrator’s help desk or the local IT help desk.
• Computers not assigned to a specific person must be exempted by their presiding judge, chief judge or state court administrator. All requests for approval shall include the justification for the exemption. The user must submit the approved request to the Office of State Courts Administrator’s help desk or the local IT help desk.

Dissemination
This policy is made available to all users. Additional guidance for implementing this policy is available from the Office of State Courts Administrator’s Systems Security unit.

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