Announcements Electronic Certified Documents

Overview

Hillsborough County Clerk of the Court and Comptroller is now offering Electronic Certified Court Documents for purchase on the Clerk's website. Each electronic certified document uses advanced encrypted features to produce a tamper proof electronic certified document that will include a unique Clerk of Court digital signature.

With Electronic Certified Documents, local governments are taking steps to serve a digital society and tackle document fraud while increasing efficiency.

Benefits of Electronic Certified Documents are:

  • Online
  • Real-time
  • Convenient
  • Secure
  • Efficient
  • Environmental friendly

Purchase Documents Online

Electronic certified court documents are now available for purchase on the Clerk's website. Only viewable electronic court documents may be purchased online.

In order to purchase an Electronic Certified Court Document on the website, the document must be in a viewable electronic format. If the case and/or document you are looking for is not available for viewing on the website, you may submit a Court Records Copy Request.

How to Purchase Electronic Certified Court Documents Online:

  • Perform an Online Case Search to locate the case.
  • On the Case Search results page, select the magnifying glass next to the case number to view the case detail.
  • Locate documents that you would like certified.
  • Select the Purchase Certified Copies button.
  • Click the Certify button on the Confirmation pop up message.
  • After all documents have been selected for certification, click the Check Out button to complete your purchase.
  • Accept the terms of service to start the purchase process.
  • Upon completion of purchase, you will receive an email from E_Certify@hillsclerk.com with links to the certified documents. The amount of time it will take to deliver the Electronic Certified Document(s) will depend on your email server. It is normal to have to wait for a couple of minutes before receiving an email to your inbox.

ONLINE CASE SEARCH

What types of Electronic Court Documents are available Online?

Below is a summary of the type of electronic court documents that are available for access online.

Civil Court Records

  • Circuit Civil
  • County Civil
  • Family, including Divorce Records (Attorney of Record, Pro Se or Registered User access is required)
  • Domestic Violence (Attorney of Record, Pro Se or Registered User access is required)
  • Probate (Attorney of Record, Pro Se or Registered User access is required)
  • Guardianship (Attorney of Record or Pro Se User access is required)
  • Mental Health (Attorney of Record or Pro Se User access is required)

Juvenile

  • Juvenile Delinquency (Attorney of Record or Pro Se User access is required)
  • Juvenile Dependency and Adoption (Attorney of Record or Pro Se User access is required)

Criminal Court Records

  • Circuit Criminal Felony
  • Traffic and Misdemeanor

Verify Electronic Certified Document

Clerk E-Certify provides two fast and easy ways to verify and authenticate both your printed copies and your electronic certificates that have been issued by the Hillsborough County Clerk's Office.

To better explain how to verify a document, a video has been provided on this page.

Verify By Code
Verify by Code image
Verify By File
Verify by File image

Frequently Asked Questions

Electronic certified documents can be purchased online anytime, anywhere, 24-hours a day. It is fast, easy and convenient. Electronic certified documents are more secure and environmentally friendly in comparison to paper certified documents.

The signing authority is the Cindy Stuart, Clerk of Court and Comptroller. The digital signature bearing the identity and authority of the Clerk is used to sign the document electronically.

Yes, Florida Statute 668 concerning electronic signature explicitly endorses the use of electronic signatures built with advanced cryptographic technology.

Yes, only viewable court documents can be purchased online. After the purchase is completed, you will receive an email with links to the certified documents. The email will typically be sent within minutes of purchase. Read more about purchasing documents online

No, electronic certified court documents do not have a wet seal. Instead, a digitally-signed certificate from the Clerk of Courts is used on each electronic certified court document.

Yes, however you should check with the agency to confirm whether they will accept an electronic version of the court document or if a paper copy is required. If so, you can print a paper copy of the electronic certified court document. Read more about verifying electronic certified documents.

Yes, one of the benefits of using electronically certified court documents are you can re-print and re-use them as many times as you would like.

It is recommended you download and save the electronic certified court documents as soon as possible after purchasing. However, the document will be available to download for 30 days after the purchase date.

No. Electronic certified court documents are valid from the time they are created and do not expire. Each electronic certified court document has a unique tracking number and is digitally signed by the Clerk of Courts. Electronic certified court documents can be verified at any time. Read more about verifying electronic certified documents.

If an electronic court document is not available online, you may submit a Court Records Copy Request..

There are several ways to verify a certified document is authentic. Read more about verifying electronic certified documents.

Yes. You can open an electronic certified court PDF document in any other compatible software. However, the availability and confirmation of the authenticity and authorship of the document will be subject to the capabilities of the reader software.

Triedata’s Clerk E-Certify is the product of thorough and rigorous engineering processes. Triedata’s Clerk E-Certify uses advanced cryptographic techniques to protect the documents. Its base standard uses the 2048-bit RSA key (a.k.a. asymmetric cryptography) for validating identity (signing) and ensuring that the document content is protected against any tampering. Just how hard is to “break” an 2048-bit RSA key based certificate like those provided by Triedata’s Clerk E-Certify? It is estimated that standard desktop computing power would take 4,294,967,296 x 1.5 million years to break a Triedata’s Clerk E-Certify 2048-bit SSL certificate. The digital signature hardware is an FIPS 140-2 level 2 cryptographic hardware that is in compliance with U.S. government computer security standard used to approve cryptographic modules. When a document is digitally signed using Triedata’s Clerk E-Certify, the system embeds sufficient information within the document to indicate the long term validity of the document for years to come.

Uniform Electronic Transaction Act provides the basic framework under which electronic signatures are valid in lieu of a manual signature. Florida statute 668.50(9)(a) provides that an electronic record or electronic signature has the same legal effect and enforceability as a manual signature. The state provides that the act of a person may be shown in any manner, including a showing of the efficacy of any security procedure applied to determine the person to which the electronic record or electronic signature was attributable. Section 668.50(2)(n) defines the term "security procedure". Section 668.003(3) defines the term "digital signature", which is the technology used by Triedata’s Clerk E-Certify to create the documents.

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