A court AI assistant can access sealed-case text without a purpose-limitation statement. What control should be required?

The required control is to document and enforce purpose limitation restricting sealed-case text to authorized judicial AI uses only. Sealed materials carry heightened confidentiality; an AI assistant with unconstrained access creates secondary-use and over-collection risk even inside the court. Purpose limitation—written, technically enforced where feasible, and auditable—defines which judicial tasks may use sealed text and blocks convenience mining.

Enforcing role-based access controls limiting sealed-case text to authorized court staff roles for case processing workflows fails because role-based access gates who can reach sealed text but does not define or restrict the purposes for which the AI may use it, so it cannot substitute for purpose limitation. Retaining detailed sealed-case AI query logs for regular retrospective audit and oversight review fails because logging detects misuse after it happens rather than preventing it; it is an oversight tool, not a purpose-limitation statement that constrains authorized judicial uses up front. Applying standard automated redaction to sealed-case AI outputs for broader court audiences fails because redacting outputs for wider distribution addresses disclosure risk, not the underlying purpose for which the AI assistant accessed sealed-case text.

Exam caveat: purpose statements without access controls, logging, and sanctions do not enforce limitation—policy text must meet technical and procedural enforcement. Operational check: verify sealed-data entitlements for the AI assistant, review purpose documentation, and sample access logs for uses outside authorized judicial tasks.