What Is The Difference Between Sealing A Record And Expunging A Record?

The Difference between sealing and expunging your criminal arrest record is the arrest outcome.

When you seal and expunge your arrest record it will remove the record from public view, but the difference lies in how it is done. Simply put the difference is What happens to the actual record.

Although the public does not have access to the arrest record, when it is sealed certain governmental or related entities, primarily those listed in Florida Statutes, have access to sealed record information in its entirety.

When a record has been expunged, those entities which would have access to a sealed record will be informed that the subject of the record has had a record expunged, but would not have access to the record itself without a court order.