In 1966, government-controlled files were fully and partially disclosed to the public through the Freedom of Information Act. In Florida, the people were given access to public records since 1909, due to the Florida Public Records Act. The Act is under Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes. Included in the Act are the rules and regulations, definition of terms, restrictions, general information on records access, examination, and duplication of files.

The Act proclaims that the state is obliged to give the public access to county, state, and municipal files. The files should be available for inspection and duplication by any member of the public for as long as proper measures are observed. Files that are encoded to digital form should have the same content as the original files. Classified files remain classified even after they are digitalized.

Although the public has the right to access public records, there are certain files that are exempted. Such files can only be accessed by a chosen few depending on the laws of the State. Files that are exempted from examination of the public include current criminal investigations, anything concerning public agency?s administration, bid proposals and many more.

Public files are available at the appropriate government offices that are in-charge of them. There are different kinds of files that comprise public records. Photo Archives, Death Certificates, Social Security Statistics, Criminal files, Health Care Administration, Land Boundary Information System, Adoption papers, Vital Statistics which includes Birth, Death, Marriage, and Divorce files, and many more are considered as public files.

Through the years, the specification of public files has expanded and more files have been added to the list. Maps, books, tapes, photos, films, audio records, and computer files are now also considered as public records.

Getting the files from public agencies takes an ample amount of time to be processed and this will cause inconvenience if you need them for legal reasons. Good thing that you can seek the help of commercial record keepers. You can find them over the Web but you will have to Martin County Florida Public Records decide whether to go for sites that are free-of-charge or those that require fees. Whichever you go for, you will get your free public records but there will be a difference in the quality of the versions of terms of depth and its fullness. Sites that require fees make use of a database linked to different sources both public and private to draw more data together. Public files are free, but it is the service of retrieving and processing the files that is being paid. Different files require different fees. you could try here Sometimes the files contain technical terms or ?jargons? that a person could not understand. Commercial record keepers organize them in a way that is easier to comprehend.