Expungements

Axon Records has two mechanisms for clearing information from a person's record:

  • Sealing: Hiding information
  • Expunging: Permanently deleting information

When sealing or expunging, you can hide/delete entire incidents or parts of the incident, such as PII, arrests, or charges. You can also seal or expunge standalone reports other than incident reports, such as Field Interviews, Citations, etc.

Both sealing and expunging can only be performed as mandated by a court order. Seals can be lifted (temporarily made visible) or removed entirely, but expunged information is permanently deleted and cannot be recovered.

If information instead needs to be hidden from general Axon Records users, rather than being cleared from a person's record, the restriction functionality should be used.

Expunging information permanently deletes that information from Axon Records. Like sealing, expunging can include an entire incident or report, or just specific sections like a person or vehicle.

Users must have specific privileges to expunge information. Actions related to expungements are tracked in the audit log.

An incident can only be expunged once all reports in the incident are finalized. Similarly, a standalone report must also be finalized before it can be expunged.

You can also expunge a booking directly from the Booking profile. See Booking expungement for more information.

 

Partial expungements

When you choose to expunge specific elements rather than the entire report, seals, restrictions, and flags remain in place for all information you choose to keep, only removing the ones pertaining to the expunged information.

 

Linked reports

To expunge a linked report, first unlink it from the incident, then open the unlinked report to perform the expungement. Keep in mind, the report you select the Expunge option from is the report that will be affected by the expungement.

 

To expunge information:

  1. Open the incident profile or report and select More actions [...] > Expunge.
    • If a standalone report is linked to an incident, the Expunge option does NOT appear in the report's More actions menu. The report can instead be expunged from the incident profile.
    • To expunge a booking, open the booking profile and access the Expunge option from the More actions menu.
      The image shows two layered screenshots. The image on the left is an incident profile. At the top, basic details about the incident are displayed. The More Actions dropdown is expanded, highlighting the Expunge option. The image on the right shows a Field Interview Report. The More Actions dropdown is expanded, highlighting the Expunge option.
  2. Enter a Court Order number.
  3. Use the checkboxes to select information to expunge (entire incident/document, people, vehicles, property ,etc.).
    • The options include all people, vehicles, property items, etc. that have been added to all the reports associated with the incident.
    • If you select a person, you can specify whether you want to expunge all information about the person, personally identifying information (PII), arrest information, or specific charges. PII includes a person's identity, aliases, identifying documents, and contact information.
  4. Select Next.
    The image shows the Expunge workflow, where the user is selecting the scope of information to be expunged. Several options are listed, including the entire incident, individuals, vehicles, properties, and evidence attachments. The Person field is expanded, with the option to expunge the entire person or specific information, such as personally identifying information or various arrests. A court order number field is also available at the top. The user can proceed to the next step by clicking the Next button at the bottom right.
  5. Redact the narratives associated with the incident to remove all content related to the information you are expunging. When expunging an entire incident, this step does not appear because the entire incident, including all narrative text, will be expunged.
    1. If the incident contains multiple narratives, switch between them using the large blue and white buttons.
    2. Select Redact narrative to use the Redact Text tool to quickly redact text in bulk.
    3. View details links display on the right side of the window for each item you are expunging (person, property, vehicle, or organization). Select these links to open the profile for that item in a new tab.
  6. Select Next.
    The image shows the expungement interface with three yellow callout markers labeled A, B, and C. Marker A highlights the narrative buttons on the left side of the screen. Marker B points to the Redact Narrative button located at the top of the narrative section. Marker C highlights the Information to be expunged section on the right, which includes links to view property and person details. The Next button is highlighted at the bottom of the screen.
  7. Review digital evidence associated with the incident by selecting the blue View evidence link.
  8. If the incident was shared with external partner agencies, select View sharing history to open Axon Evidence and contact the external partners about the expungement.
  9. Review any physical evidence related to the expungement.
    • When the expungement is submitted, the property custodian should be notified to destroy them
  10. Select Next.
    The image shows a section of the expungement tool interface with a yellow callout highlighting information about physical evidence. The highlighted section states that there are physical evidence items related to the expungement, and the property custodian will be notified to destroy these items. Below this, a table displays the property description and a property ID. The buttons at the bottom of the screen allow the user to go back, cancel, or proceed to the next step.
  11. Review the information to be expunged and acknowledge the statements at the top of the screen by selecting the Acknowledge checkbox.
  12. Select Expunge permanently and confirm the expungement in the dialog box that appears.
    • When expunging an entire incident for which a case has been created, all case documentation will also be deleted.
      The image shows the expungement review screen, where the user is required to acknowledge the expungement. Below, a table lists the report sections, associated reports, and their expungement status. Two items are marked as will be expunged under property and person, while a third item will not be expunged. At the bottom, there are buttons to go back, cancel, or expunge permanently.

It may take up to 24 hours for the expungement process to complete. You can review the Expungement Log to view the status of an expungement.

If the last remaining association for an entity is expunged, the entire entity is removed from the database.

Redact Text tool

When expunging portions of an incident or report, you can quickly redact text that appears multiple times throughout a narrative (e.g., the name of a person). To open the tool, select Redact narrative.

When the tool opens, the text of the original narrative displays on the left, and the text of the redacted narrative displays on the right. The tool automatically suggests words that may need to be redacted. These words are highlighted in purple on the left, and the suggested text to replace these words is highlighted in green on the right.

Suggestions are based on the seal scope selected at the beginning of the expungement workflow. For example, if you select a person from the list, suggestions in the Redact Text tool automatically include all person names that appear in the narrative.
The image shows the Redact Text interface, displaying the original text on the left and the redacted text on the right. Personal information such as names, dates, and locations has been replaced with generic placeholders like Person1, Date Time1, and Address1 in the redacted version. Below, a table lists the original text alongside the redacted version for each entity, categorized as Person. Options to edit or delete the redacted entries are available. Pagination controls are shown to navigate through multiple pages, and buttons for canceling or saving the redaction are located at the bottom.

The table below the text summarizes each suggestion:

  • Original text: The text that appears in the original narrative
  • Redacted text: The text that will be expunged
  • Entity category: The type of text. Options include:
    • Address
    • Age
    • Bank Account Number
    • Date Time
    • Drivers License Number
    • Email
    • Individual Taxpayer Identification
    • Officer
    • Organization
    • Person
    • Phone Number
    • Social Security Number
    • Subject
    • Witness

Select the pencil icon to edit the suggestion or the trash can icon to remove it.

To create a new redaction item, select Add new.
The image shows the section of the Redact Text interface where original text is paired with its redacted version. The table lists three entries under Original Text, Redacted Text, and Entity Category. Each entry includes options to edit or delete the redaction. At the top right of the table, there is an option to add a new entry, labeled Add New. Pagination controls at the bottom allow navigation between pages of entries.

After completing all redactions, select Save redaction at the bottom of the screen to return to the expungement workflow.

Audit log

The following expungement events appear in the user audit log:

  • Create Expungement Partial Incident
  • Create Expungement

Each event includes the following information:

  • User who took the action
  • Date and time the action was taken
  • Report or Incident ID
  • Court Order Number

Additionally, an expungement event appears in the log whenever a user views the Expungements Log in the Administrator Console:

  • Search Expungements

For more information about accessing audit logs, see Audit Log Tool.