Slashdot Mirror
How Public Should Public Records Be?
Hobobo writes: "This article on the New York Times talks about whether public records that are available in local government offices should or shouldn't be available online. It also talks about the "practical obscurity" of people checking files in police offices and whatnot, and public records on the internet are "too public," and the privacy and freedom of information issues involved." If you'd like to try it, you can use "Giuliani" and "5/28/44".
very public...that's why they call them public, right?...ummm...right?
My cat's breath smells like cat food.--R. Wiggums
This is a real issue. I'm amazed what I can find about people on the Web already. Correlating bits of innocent data can give you a surprisingly complete picture.
There's a big double standard here: the federal judiciary, whose financial records are required to be made public, has consistently refused to make them available on the Internet, or to release them to people who plan to do that. That's no surprise, but it's unfair. Sauce for the goose, and so on.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
http://archive.nytimes.com/2001/08/24/nyregion/24V OTE.html.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Most public records laws already have measures in place to safeguard personal privacy. Others, as in the article (I read it!) do need some work to account for personal privacy. A good example is, before records were finally given to APB news on judges' finances, personal information such as address, phone, etc., was redacted.
Records being available in the Internet is very important. Check out www.freedomforum.org to see how hard it is often to get public records in person, with demands to know why, see ID and attempted arrests (especially for public police records such as who's currently in jail). Internet access would allow people to get this information without fear of intimidation.
There's an assumption being made:
"Only you, your family, and your closest friends know your birthday"
I _wish_ I could remember my family members' birthdays (and anniverseries, etc. etc. etc.)!
But seriously... that's there idea of "security"? That's not security through obscurity, that's security through stupidity!
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
If they are realy public, why shouldn't they be on the internet? In fact the site above is indeed an invasion of privacy, but because it is disclosuring the address of people, not because it is disclosiring wheter people are registred voters or not. If the site response were :
:-)
:-/
Doe, John is a registred voter.
instead of
Doe, john 123 main street republican.
It would disclosure the information that is public and would not be that intrusive.
But there are worst cases, the directory of phone of Rio de Janeiro disclosures not only the address but also the map on how to get there.
you can try : HTTP://www.telelista.com.br/, just lick in the "residancial" and search for josé (a fairly common name in Brasil. Click on the little ball on the left of name and voila you have a map to that person's home.
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
I don't know. There is someone at my work place that has been going through a divorce over the past year. She likes having the court records online so she can check it daily to see what is going on and where the paperwork has stopped.
...
.. I found my sister's traffic tickets (where she actually had to goto court) .. things on my brother.. things on other friends .. etc.. All in the comfort of my own home.
.. people start pulling information for no reason other than just to see whats out there.
.. and maybe even having stuff on the internet is good too .. but I think if records are public .. shouldn't there be a record of who has looked at the 'public records'? Isn't that public infomation too ??
.. that way at least there's a small stepping stone to prying through people's information .. and since the information about ME I should know who looked at my information.
...
But then again... I wouldn't have known about her divorce she was going through if her name hadn't popped up in a search that few of us were 'jokingly' putting in people's names into search engines seeing what we could "dig up"
I not only found her divorce
There's something to be said about getting up off your butt and going down to a location to dig up information on someone. When it's all at the tips of EVERYONE's fingertips
I think it's good to have records available to everyone
People should have to get an ID to get the public records
Just a thought
Back in college I worked for this guy as a PC tech. He had this great idea of building a system which would link all the property to a database that would in turn allow you then to either click on the map and pull up all the records for the parcel of land or type in a name and see all the property that person owned.
Nifty idea back in it's time.
Anyway...
I know that there are companies that go to each court house and scan in all the documents posted in the last year and they sell the data to other companies that use the data to market products or back to cities as an effective storage / archive system. these same companies do the same thing for the states, too.
I think it should be a careful balance between my right to some privacy and the public right to know. Sooner or later all the records will be stored in a digital format. And sooner or later that information will find its way to the net.
Maybe limit the number of times a person can access the records per day? Or maybe give the database office hours (only accessible from 9 to 5)?
Maybe its time for us technically inclined to run for office and put into effect some good ideas?
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/24/nyregion/24VOTE. html V OTE.html (watch the spaces if you copy/paste)
becomes:
http://archive.nytimes.com/2001/08/24/nyregion/24
While I am irked that they are making it too easy to get at some of this personal data, the guy has an interesting point. The real problem here isn't online accessibility -- it's accessibility by anyone. The "practical obscurity" notion has some merit, but IMHO, I am rather miffed to find out that some of this information is available to any bozo who strolls down to a county records office with a few crumbs of data about me to begin with.
What makes us think it's a good idea to allow access to things like the names of crime victims anyway? Anybody who throws my voter registration info in a database with nothing but my name and birthdate to protect it is getting sued. This kind of thing should be opt-in only!
It's not funny till someone gets hurt.
Sure being public means that anyone in the public has a right to view these things, but that's not to say that they need not be accountable for it.. In other words, I don't want random people looking at my shit. And if people do look at my shit, I want to be able to get a list of names, so I can look at their shit.. This can be easily avoided on the net, just create an account and look... I don't have anything to hide, but I value my privacy...
Procrastinators, Unite Tomorrow!!
Since when is it news that you can get property records online?
For my state (Ohio), and county (Franklin), I can get full property record information, including sale price, all inspection history, even the layout by knowing just the address. This service has been available for years now and is available for countless other counties in Ohio and the same in many other states.
The only thing you can't do right now is get someones criminal record (although it is available for anyone about anyone for a fee). In addition, there are many states which have been putting court transcripts online for awhile now. So this isn't news -- it's just the privacy people drumming up more emotion.
For the most part I don't think people should worry the slightest. Actual stalkers who want someone's information and are determined to actually do *something* don't care about convience. They'll go dig through a file cabnet for their x-wife's name and address just as they would look it up online. It saves them some work, but that wasn't their goal in the first place.
In addition, most important people and celebrities have known addresses. They show their homes off on TV and magazines. So I doubt they care about that.
That article presents a pretty pathetic argument. These are public records, and there are all kinds of positive uses. Public records will always be abused, and putting them on the Internet isn't going to stop nor increase that abuse (due to the nature and type of people who do such abuse).
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
I just went to the site (http://www.registeredtovoteornot.com) and in the section entitled "What others are saying:" was the following...
JANE B, on 60 STREET says, "Please remove my name (Jane S. Brody, Woodside, dob 7/4/47) from your site IMMEDIATELY (i.e., this morning, Friday, August 24). AND PLEASE DO NOT POST MY COMMENTS ON YOUR SITE. Your site, for all your good intentions, is a serious invation of privacy (for one thing, if you have a person's birthday but are not sure of the year, you can now find out the year; also you can now determine anybody's party affiliation). You would be well advised to shut your site down, at least for several days, and redesign it. By the way, why did you choose a person's birthday as the identifier? Would social security number be safer? No one that I know of (besides myself, my bank, my employer, etc.) has that information. Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter."
I think that demonstrates exactly how much they respect the wishes of the citizens of NY...
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
This follows the same lines as "security through obscurity"
Every one assumed they had privacy through "practical obscurity" meaning that before the internet information had to be obtained by actually visiting or calling a government agency.
With the internet the amount of personal data that you can obtain on a person in a relatively short period of time, while sitting at home is quite disturbing.
The real question is "Should the goverenment publish personal information to the net, but still make it available if you show up in person?"
0.02 cents
Technology is only a vehicle. People are the ones that drive it.
As a Brit, I'm a little puzzled by the fact that the political preference of most people in New York seems to be public information. I typed in Smith and a random date, and got back several matches, most of which had their affiliation. Where does this information come from?
For example:
It doesn't take long to come up with 10 or 15 names.
A quick Google search for their name and the word "birthdate" gave me all I needed to find their home address using this site.
Some of them may think that this knowledge is not public, and they're the ones for whom information is most easily available, since celebrity birthdates are very easily found.
This certainly isn't the worst problem with this site. I think private citizens deserve privacy more than celebrities, who did, after all, make the decision to be known publicly, but theirs are the easiest birthdates to find.
i know that 1800ussearch searches nearly all public databases for information about a certain subject. in most coubntries in Europe thats illegal... hwo do you cope with that in america?
".Sig Stealer" was here
All that said, the public has a long standing and legally well tested right to know (as we journalists call it). Public figure like the Mayor of New York or Janet Reno give up most claims to privacy that might apply to ordinary folks when they run for office. We need to know about their criminal and inventment histories when we vote (for example).
Certified Black Helicopter Pilot *** Unwitting Dupe of One World Gov'ment
On http://www.registeredtovoteornot.com , there is a 5 step process. The last step allows you to post comments in the 'guestbook'. Problem is is that the guestbook in fact sticks the comments instantly right on to the main page of the website! This wouldn't be a problem, but several less-informed people have put up requests to be removed from the database - and included their date of birth, full name, address, Soc. sec. # etc!! Just reload the page every couple of minutes and you can see it happening in real time.. good if you want to do some identity stealing, not so good for the unwitting people who post the comments :/
Moo.
Same argument stands -- the "bad guy" will find it anyway... The easier the access, the higher the awareness -- no longer will one's unwillingness to, say, use the Social Security Number as the student ID number (UMass Boston's practice, for example), look freakish...
Then perhaps, the politicians will realize something too and some of those records will not be public anymore...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Get over it.
Best Slashdot Co
I registered to vote in an other county in NY more than 6 months ago (which is supposed to delete my NYC registration) but my record still appears on the site, so it is at least a few months behind or they are slow deleting re-registered voters.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
I moved out of NYC years ago, (and am a registered voter in my new district near Rochester) and yet my name is STILL on file there! I'd like a form to fill out that says "I moved away, please take me off not just your site, but the voter rolls as well." Maybe then my parents will stop getting Jury Duty notices in my name....
I'm glad to see this issue finally coming to the fore. The legal prescidents mentioned in the article have pretty much set the foundation on this issue already. I have somewhat mixed feelings on this issue, for example, the online availability of detailed public records (including personally identifiable contact information, etc.) has made things like geneology MUCH easier, but the convenient availability of this information to a worldwide audience has a tremendous potential for abuse. In the more specific case, I've never felt my political affiliations should be public record at all (as, they reflect on my political beliefs, which are private) but since they are public record, there is no basis to prevent their distribution as far as I can see.
Let's assume for the moment that in fact something should be done to limit online access to what have always been public records. There are two possible approaches. Each typee of record could be examined and re-evaluated as to what portion of the record whould be made public (ie: remove the addresses of indeviduals from X record before it is made public) or the laws regarding the disclosure of public records could be ammended to prevent certain types of distribution of the media (ie: no electronic distribution permitted). The first solution, although more precise, would be almost impossible to achieve and would reduce the value of the record as a whole. The second is far more easily achievable, but may be over-reaching in the case of certain completely inocuous record types.
Peraps the latter alternative could be used where there shall be no electronic distribution of records to those who do not reside in a municipality local to the storage of the records (such thet they could have physical access to the records anyway, without inconvenience), but anyone who requested the records on paper or electronic media, could recieve them for private use - with the afore mentioned provision still in force). This solution has it's own problems, such as it would just server to create an industry that would employ indeviduals local to areas housing highly valued public records, to re-distribute them for a fee in some non-elecronic form, rather than such application fees as the government would otherwise collect.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Ya, 'too public' thats almost as funny as the phrase 'too much freedom'
question authority....
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
The NYT article talks about concern about making property sale prices conveniently available, but those are already conveniently available on the web. My preferred site for that is domania.com which has good data for lots of states across the country. There isn't data for states that don't disclose sale prices, and some areas are not well-covered, but in general, it has reasonably useful data. Try a few friends who bought places relatively recently- interesting. In some areas, it goes back to sales from 1987 onwards.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
The idea of "practical obscurity" is that you can find out individual records that you're looking for, but you can't just go and get all of the records. This effectively prevents data mining while allowing access to direct information of public record.
The real-world implementation is that you can go and ask for a record, and get a copy of it. But you have to ask for the record you want; you can't just say, "give me all the records you have". I'd be fine with a site that made public records available online in such a way as to prevent someone from sending it all the names from the phone book or something.
Our town (Merrimack, NH) got a TON of flack for having the grand list online. Basically, if you knew someone's name or address you could get a picture of their house and property.
Mucho complaining, and they shut down the website. You can still go down to the town hall and get all this info though.
Is that better? I don't know.
Krispy Cream is people
As a story here on /. mentioned a while back
(the search tool is down at the moment, or I'd
put a link to it), many laws a copyright by the
people / organizations who submitted them.
Once it becomes a law, copyright over that text
should be void, and it should be publishable by
anyone, and it should be put on the web for easy
access.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
This is nothing. I work for a company that provides computer services and software for county records offices, which is where things like deeds and mortgages are registered with the county. Land owner's signatures, and sometimes even social security numbers are public information, and have been for quite some time. Anyone can go into the county office, and for a couple of bucks walk out with a copy of someone's mortgage.
My current job, or a major part of this is to put this information on the internet. There are still issues being worked out like who pays for the systems...the users or the county, and other minor problems, but in many counties the information will soon be available free over the internet. What's scary is it is a piece of cake for someone to grab person's name, usually address, signature, and social-sec-# all in a one stop shopping experience.
And the NYT is having a stink over names linked to addresses? We have not made any waves yet, but our core customer base are commercial searches, who if don't get the info over the internet will just drive to the county anyway.
I'll be interested to read the discussion following this article.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
If you visit the website now, you might notice that you get redirected to the EFF. Apparently when you post comments, it doesn't check what you type in. A few lines of javascript later (hehe), and the site looks like it's h4x0r3d.
Great job e-ThePeople!
Great job.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
I try going to
http://www.registeredtovoteornot.com
and I get a javascript alert saying:
"You Loose! Have fun at the EFF"
And then it redirects to the EFF homepage.
I guess someone's feelings are hurt.
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
At least it would save us from stupid tabloid headline "uncoverings" and "revealings" when all is public knowledge already. Oh, how it'd confuse the heck out of those sorry asses whos only joy of life is snooping on other peoples doings! Suckers, snoop on this! <vulgar_gesture>
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
The site is really dumb. They allow users to post anything, so some brilliant guy went in and posted a javascript that redirects you to eff.org. :)
His script says:
WILLIAM S, on ROCKAWAY PARKWAY says, "(SCRIPT)alert("YOU LOSE! Have fun at the EFF"); location.href="http://www.eff.org/";(/SCRIPT)"
I just disabled javascript to read the site... To fix it, I guess 3 people need to add comments to clear that out
I do not think that, when they set the rules for publicc access to public records, they knew the internet was coming.
For example, Foreigners able to access our citizens public records just by browsing to their county's public records page.
I live in Volusia County, FL (where all the shark attacks are happening) ANYONE can browse to http://www.clerk.org and put my name in and find out all kind of information about me from my last speeding ticket to the deed on my house. My social security number is included on some of these documents and available for the WORLD to see.
Also, City Officials seem to have some pull on the online database - just look up records to the clerk herself - Diane Matousek - You will find almost all of the documents on her many property purchases to be "missing".
Sure, it says it's a crime to misuse the information... but since when do criminals follow the laws?
Fish! LipHo
May 28 1944 Birthdays
Rudolph Giuliani (politician and former Mayor of New York City)
http://www.famousbirthdays.net/may28.htm
As a State government webmaster, I've been expressly asked NOT to publish information that one of our departments has...
How to obtain a permit for explosives.
Can a person obtain that information by calling us on the phone? yes. But by making the information hard enough to obtain, you're hopefully reducing the number of people you don't want to have that kind of power.
I've been a 'victim' of identity theft. An analysis of _that_ occurance determined that all the other person had was my name and SSN. They could get that if they worked for my Doctor, Life insurance Company, Workplace, Bank, or a miriad of other places that have FullName and SSN as fields in a database.
Most likely it did not stem from my internet usage.
I don't know what the solution is, but I can tell you it's not an 'internet only' phenomena.
Taken from privacy page of the site:
In addition to this data, here is a summary of all the information we collect about you when you use this service:
And more people filing complaints are unknowingly having their input posted on the index page along with their address, and any information they include in their text (some are including social security numbers. more harm than good!)
John - newrisedesigns.com
Ok, I'm pretty sure that when a site is slashdotted it doesn't come up with a message saying "This site has been slashdotted. Please move on". And I was just gonna get the addresses of famous people as well, ah well.
When I went to registeredtovoteornot.com (at 09:20 EST) it popped up a dialog box that read "This site has been slashdotted. Please move on", clicking "OK" redirected back here.
Best Slashdot Co
It might be helpful to consider what the public actually needs to know in deciding what information should be available in any form (paper or electronic). Various government agencies need to collect personal information about the consituents it serves. This is unavoidable. So the question becomes who needs to have that information and when is having that information available in the public interest.
I think you can make a case for saying that having deeds and property ownership information available is a good and necessary thing. That does not mean that complete personal information (birthdate, SSN, etc) about the owner needs to be made available to anyone who asks. I think it's time to start considering dividing records into two parts one of which will be provided to the public, and the other (which may be necessary for the agency to do its job) which will not be disclosed to a third party.
This should not be confounded with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). FOIA is generally a good thing. It is the hook that enables us to keep tabs on our government. This needs to be protected. However, it can be limited. It is rarely necessary for a journalist or other investigatory agency to obtain the records of specific individuals to do their jobs. It is almost never necessary to disclose this to a corporation which will typically use it primarily for marketing. Note that there is precedent for this. In most cases state universities have exemptions from FOIA for student records. This principle can be extended.
This is an old problem made even more problematic by new technology. Gotta love it.
Traditionally, one has always had to make the "trip across town" to the local town/city hall or state/federal building. This has limited access only to those who were somewhat determined to get the information (ie for lawsuits and other conflicts).
Easier access to this information can be used by spammers, telemarketers, etc. to create mailing lists that bombard us with all kinds of garbage.
I propose that online access to public information be limited such that it doesn't allow a person to retrieve dozens or hundreds of records continuously. If a person wants to access such information, he or she would be allowed a fixed amount of usage (determined by a browser cookie, a scan of the persons IP address, etc.) per day or week. If that person needs to access or download hundreds of records at once for legitimate reasons such as lawsuits, tax research, title research, then such access can be applied for and granted on a case by case basis.
This won't stop unscrupulous people from abusing legitimate access for their own needs, but it will provide some tracability and accountability for their actions.
Public records should remain public. However, the cybernetic tools to search and gather hundreds of records don't have to be. A human brain has always been an excellent, and free, tool to use. It still is.
Doesn't Information want to be free?
We're all afraid of what can happen now that (previously not-so-)public records are easy to access. I don't want people that I meet to be able to discover my entire life's history. Think about the impact this might have on getting a job. "Sorry, you're a great candidate, but we don't want to hire you because we did a public records search and found that you have 17 unpaid Boston parking tickets."
Then again... U.S. society is gradually becoming less and less formal. Many people don't wear suits to work. Many issues which used to be taboo (sex, divorce, drugs) are more openly discussed. But, we're still quick to criticize people who have faults. Could making public information more readily available finally relax this high-view stereotype that we have? We're already progressing in that direction. Clinton wasn't stoned after his affair was publicized. Bush was elected president even though he had a serious drinking problem when he was young.
With public records being easily accessible, we're going to have to get used to everyone having a "history." But, society does change with time. This is just another transition that society needs to go through. Sci-fi writers (e.g. Spielberg/Kubrik in A.I.) try to make us believe that people are static---they don't change with technology. But, they do. Aren't cars, planes and *nuclear missles* a bit more society-altering than a robotic boy? In some ways, this change will be great. It will allow us to discover when people have a seriously dangerous history (e.g. mass murder, millions of $$$ in credit card fraud, etc.). It will also bring our society to accepting things that normal people do (e.g. drinking in college, smoking pot, not paying parking tickets, etc.). We're all human. We make mistakes sometimes. We also occasionally just like to enjoy life and not think too much the future consequences of our actions.
Anyway, making public records easy-to-access may seem like a terrible thing. But, they are public records. If someone *really* wanted to know your birthday & address, they would have been able to find it. Making them easily accessible helps those who don't have the time to search through all of the records. And, it will (hopefully) inject some much needed humanity into our society.
Jason
The answer to any concerns that there is too much in the public record is to change the laws so such information is not public record, not to make public records harder for the "little people" to access.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
I ran for school board a few years back and I needed a list of registered voters in my district. I had to pay the county $100. Not a lot, but it represented 10% of what we had to spend on the campaign. I clearly had a need to know and it rankled me that some bureaucrat had decided that candidates should have to pay $100 for a floppy that took 2 minutes to produce. It boiled down to a tax on challenging the incumbents.
As a public service, I publish California high school SAT scores. Every year, it's like pulling teeth to get the state to relinquish the data. We go round the bush with the same arguments each year and then they finally let me have the data. It's obvious they don't like what I do with the data, but then, is it their right to deny access?
We operate a tutoring business that uses computers to grade some 500 tests per week. We think what we're doing has a real effect on children's ability to compute and that it's positively correlated with their math test scores. We've needed access to data for years to test that hypothesis but privacy concerns thwarted that access. This year, we finally gained access and sure enough, our hypothesis was confirmed. Those data not only showed us we're on the right track, they also suggested changes in what we're doing. Was the public interest better served by denying access?
In the end, it comes down to "who decides what you should be allowed to know?" Given their druthers, most agencies would rather they decide, even if their decision is not in the public interest.
Exterminating your personal information is probably impossible. It's probably better to generate as dense a fog of contradictory and misleading information about yourself as possible.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
What others are saying:
TIM R, on WEST 15 STREET says, "Susan and I love your site.
Thanks for giving out our home address!"
JERRY S, on CENTRAL PARK WEST says, "Hi Jerry Seinfeld
here. I live at 211 Central Pk. West and was born 4/29/54 I'm a
stand-up comic, but I don't think this site is very funny! Now
everyone knows I'm a registered democrat! "
WILLIAM D, on GREENWICH STREET says, "Please remove
my data from your database!"
Other issues aside, with quality control like this, I wonder how much of this information is accurate.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Currently I'm involved with a system proposal for a local civil court system. The records of a civil case are public, and the court clerk's office will allow anyone to walk off the street and read the contents of any filed case. But their plan for a web-based database of case information dictates that accessing the data via the web will cost money. Their primary justification for this plan is that they can't justify the increase in budget necessary to accomodate bandwidth/maintenance charges. They also argue that making the information available via the Internet is not mandated by state law, so the public does not have the right to access the information via the web. It would only be a privilege of those who pay for it.
I'm not sure how I feel about it. I guess that they court clerk's office doesn't have to do anything that isn't in the law, so, in my opinion, the law should be changed to provide such a mandate (and, consequently, state funds for providing such access). I can live with part of my tax dollars going to make this information available on the web.
My sigs always suck.
If it's public, put it on the web. The means of distribution should not be confused with the security level of the document. If it's public, put it on the web, otherwise, don't. I think it's pretty underhanded to call something public and then not provide a reasonable and convenient means for public viewing.
~ now you know
I think the concept of "too public" is completely bogus. It is actually WORSE to allow access to public records in crippled ways only. In a nutshell, knowledge is power and a system where data is difficult to get citizens are at a tremendous knowledge power inequity. I support anything that moves power to citizens.
All privacy by obfuscation does is create fake value-add business models to market public data.
An example is judicial decisions and legal records. Most circuits are available on the net now, but most district opinions are still offline. Lexis and Westlaw make big bucks by doing nothing other than providing access to public documents. The whole legal industry is dependent on them, which increases legal costs dramatically, reduces predictability of the law, and serves to enforce the guild.
The credit report situtation is just as bad. You often have to pay to see what's in your own credit report, but it provides no privacy protection against creditors and potential creditors, who are the main groups you want privacy protection from.
Once policy decides that information should be public, it should be made available in the most accessible way. If the info should be private, the information subject should control all access. The problem is only if we choose to make information public or semi-public that should be private.
My appraisal district here makes all property values available on the net in a manner that can be searched by name or address. I have looked up all of my neighbors and my coworkers property values. I think that crosses the line, but I would absolutely NOT consider it a solution to make people go in to the property tax office to get these records, though. That would simply serve to limit the knowledge to those who could pay a falsely inflated price to get the information, which would then serve to improve the negotiation position of organizations over citizens.
It is a necessity for the public that these records remain public. These records have been public in the United States for 200 years. The only difference was ease of access. Years ago, when a high school student, I worked for my local auditors office and I had floor plans to every building in the county available to me. This access must remain open.
"You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it."
Won't work. Someone only has to get access to all the records once, and can quite legally republish them, since they're public records. Either it's public or it's not--we've too long relied on "public but obscure," which has been no protection at all from those "in the know."
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
I vaugely remember the copyright issue you mentioned. I doubt copyright issues will prevent the government from publishing it's own laws. At least, I really hope that's the case.
We operate a tutoring business that uses computers to grade some 500 tests per week. We think what we're doing has a real effect on children's ability to compute and that it's positively correlated with their math test scores. We've needed access to data for years to test that hypothesis but privacy concerns thwarted that access. This year, we finally gained access and sure enough, our hypothesis was confirmed. Those data not only showed us we're on the right track, they also suggested changes in what we're doing. Was the public interest better served by denying access?
while I do think that is fair use of government data, I don't think many people would want their math test scores available to the public on the internet
making records available behind the counter is different to sticking up posters in the street...
the analogy may not be totally accurate, but I don't see why there can't be a middle ground
access to code of criminals may involve victims as well as perps
should a rape victim be publicly exposed?
I find it ironic that anyone with an Internet connection can anonymously find out where I live, my telephone number, the size of my house and how much I paid for it, whether or not I received a speeding ticket, etc. but I can't read the NY Times article without getting a ^@$#*!* username and password. (OK, you can register a fake name, but that's more than what you have to do to check up on me.)
Public information should be public, but I don't think completely unfettered access is necessarily good either. On the other hand, if specific checks and balances are put in place to protect those who have information in public databases, they can be used as roadblocks by those who have something to hide. I have no idea how you strike a balance between the two. Perhaps the traditional method of going down to the courthouse is not too far off the mark.
-z
In Soviet Russia, the Beowulf cluster imagines you!
Well, on one hand, they are Public records... that's pretty clear. Public does mean Public.. why should I have to inconvenience myself by driving 3 counties over to get some files at city hall, when I could just look it up on the internet from anywhere?
Which brings us to the other hand; the fact that said information is somewhat obscure in practice. You have to go out of your way to get it; it's been that way for a long, long time, so putting these records on the internet WILL change the way information is used.. it IS different.
I think the real answer is both a) Yes, if it's on the Public record, it should be available to anyone free, online... and...
b) Given this, we should re-think what should be public record and what shouldn't.
Remember, those in power can find things out about you a lot faster than you can find things out about them simply because they know where to look. This would even the playingfield.
Clinton wasn't stoned after his affair was publicized.
Of course not. Monica never, errr, inhaled.
Seriously, I agree with you. Moore's Law works for everybody, which means that all this personal information gets cheaper and cheaper to process. Copyright Prohibition is not working out very effectively for any commercial medium -- any kind of privacy law is doomed to fail.
So just as the RIAA needs a new business model, every human society is going to need a new reputation model. It's probably going to be based on the current credit reporting model.
Hey,
Easier access to this information can be used by spammers, telemarketers, etc. to create mailing lists that bombard us with all kinds of garbage.
Wouldn't it be easier to have a government-run list of telephone numbers, and to say 'These people will not recieve telemarketing calls'?? You could then instill a fine of, say, $5,000 for every marketing call to a number on the list.
I mean, many people already have thier details on record. That's how all the postal spam you get has your name and address on it. Instead of making public records hard to get, why not simply offer a marketing opt-out procedure?
Michael
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
Our cities' public libraries departments reference desks have flouted
s
state and local FOI freedom of information principles when it involves their very own
departmental curatorial reports on collections development and the related cities consultants reports on our cities public libraries.
Boston Public Library denies it, yet has flouted state FOI principles and reference desk principles.
Guide to Problematical Library Use
GuideToProblematicalLibraryUse.WebLogs.com/storie
http://saklad.org
Gosh, look, there's a lot of data in the world that you don't want other people to copy. So you're thinking about making some new laws to regulate copying of data. Have a look at Napster, Gnutella, IRC, et cetera, to see how well such laws work.
If Lexis/Nexis can see it, they can rip it. That's the way the world is. Adjust your privacy model accordingly.
NObody wants my privates to be public.
TRUST me...
Yeah, that's what they all say, they all say Doh...
The State of Connecticut until recently maintained a registry of sex offenders which was accesible online. It was an extension of the "Megan's Law" idea of letting citizens known when a child molester lives next door to you. You could search the database by location and be presented with a list, complete with addresses and photos, of area registered sex offenders.
This program, understandably, was controversial from the start, with good arguments being made both for and against it. A Federal judge ordered the site shut down earlier this year. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if that decision won't be later overturned.
We've had access to this type of information for the last few years, and it comes directly from government websites not non-profit groups. The state of Texas has been pushing for local goverments to make as much public information available on the internet as possible. This currently there is voter information, property tax info, booking and release info from the county jail, sex offender info, and lots more.
t s.htm Booking and Releases at the Harris County Jail (With Bail Amounts)
But the information is still fairly obscure. It is scatered accross dozens of wesites, and is normally burried pretty deep. Most people don't even know the information is there, or have trouble finding and making sense of it. In the last few year that this has been available I can not remember any reports of missuse of this information.
Personaly I'm glad the inforamtion is on the net. I can renew my vechicle registration, find my car that got towed for unpaid parking tickets, find out where to vote, see how much I owe in properity taxes, know if a sex offender has moved in next door, and see if any on I know needs me to come bail them out of jail. All in 5 min with out having to talk to rude, disintersted, underpaid clerks at 5 different local government offices.
A few examples:
http://police.baytown.org My home town police. Arrest Warants, Incedent Reports, Sex Ofenders, Current Jail Guests updated every 15 min
http://www.tax.co.harris.tx.us Voter Info, Property Tax Info
http://www.co.harris.tx.us/jimsweb/towed Towed Cars in Harris County (Houston, TX)
http://www.co.harris.tx.us/jims/jimsreports/repor
Doe, John is a registred voter.
instead of
Doe, john 123 main street republican.
It would disclosure the information that is public and would not be that intrusive.
One big reason public records are public is so they can be checked for accuracy, allowing errors and fraud to be detected and corrected. This is especially true in the case of voter registration.
Political machines have historically created large numbers of fake votes, and used these to keep themselves in power far beyond the point where the actual population would have voted them out.
Once this was done by techniques such as "keeping alive" a voter registration after the actual voter had died, an abuse so prevalent that "the graveyard vote" became a term of political discourse. This practice continues to this day. (Our next-door neighbor has been trying for years to deregister her mother - who died a while back. The clerk refuses, because she's still voting.)
But more recent changes to election laws - especially in California - have led to enormous abuse.
"Motor-Voter" registration, with stacks of mail-in forms in every public office, allows the creation of paper voters in wholesale lots.
At-poll-site registration-and-vote allows vanloads of "instant voters" to move from poll site to poll site, registering and voting multiply.
No-reason absentee ballot laws allow paper voters to vote - first time and every time - by mail, never showing a face to a poll watcher. (One address in Berkeley was recently noticed to have several THOUSAND "residents" voting absentee.)
Non-citizens are allowed - and encouraged - to vote. A poll-watcher may not ask for proof of citizenship because this is allegedly "racist" and "intimidating".
Any fraud at all can swing a close election. This sort of massive fraud can swing even non-close ones. Without such fraud would the last presidential election have been a squeaker? Would the houses of congress be closely divided and split between parties? Would the Hunter's Point park have been turned into shopping malls and condos and millions in bond money spent (to be repaid from taxes) on a stadium that was never built?
Would millions of potential voters be staying home (making the fraud still easier) because they believe their votes don't count?
Would YOUR vote make a differenc?
Changing the law starts with showing there's a problem with the existing law. Showing there's a problem requires detecting it. Detecting it requires documenting large numbers of fake voters. Documenting fake voters requires access to the names and addresses of registered voters.
So hiding the addresses of registered voters - in bulk on the internet - promotes voter fraud and political machines. Yet the privacy risk comes from the availability of the address AT ALL - and a stalker, crook, or information seller can still get the addresses he wants.
So keeping addresses off the internet is the worst of both worlds, leaving the crooks and privacy-invaders with access and the general population in the dark.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
So, she's some 54-year-old woman who's been telling her friends that she's 49. Too bad. Try some honesty, Jane B.
As far as voter registration goes, the purpose of public records is to prevent fraud. The list of who is registered to vote and what party's primary they are entitled to vote in is open to everybody, so that people can notice whether dead people, underage people, non-citizens, and phantom people are registered to vote. In geek analogy terms: voting records are open source so that all parties can inspect them in order to improve security.
Finally, voter registration records in New York City do not include social security number. They include name, birth date, address, and party affiliation. That's why registeredtovoteornot.com uses birthday as a password -- it's the least known of the information that they have.
Hey,
Personally, I don't see what all the fuss is about. I live in the United Kingdom, and we have had something similar to this for a while, and it has caused no real problems.
Voters' registration records are publically availiable. Also, people who don't ask to be ex-directory have thier phone numbers listed in thier regional phone book.
Anyway, a company called I-CD Publishing makes the UK Info Disk. They got all the (public) phone books, and all the (public) voter's records, and correlated the two, producing a range of CDs, and I gather they offer online searches as well. Linited versions of these CDs (i.e. only 15 records returned per search) were made availiable on the front of several computer magazines and the like.
I have one of these CDs; all it does is make accessing publicly availiable information easy. If I want a phone number for someone living a long way away, I can look them up on the CD, assuming I know the area in which they live, and thier second name, and optionally thier first initial. Then I will get returned thier address, and telephone number (assuming they are not ex-directory).
This isn't a terribly abusable resource. Nobody is harassed by EVIL TELEPHONE MARKETING COMPANIES, because you can ask to be put on a global British Telecom do not call list, and then telemarketers do not call you. nobody is ATTACKED BY EVIL STALKERS because there isn't much stalking over here. If you get stalked, you call the police, and the person in question is arrested. There's no EVIL IDENTY THEFT because there isn't enough information availaibe to perform identy theft, and banks tend to like solid proof of your identity before they will give you money.
So, what's my point? Having some information publically availiable online, i.e. name / address / telephone number, does not instantly make your society degrade into anarchy. It is, however, a useful reference tool for legimate uses.
Don't get too paranoid. Anyone who has the time to search for your personal details out of the millions of other people in the country likely has enough free time to wander down to the county records office and ask for the relevent records.
Michael
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
As a County IT guy we are always struggling with this. We have to major web applications (I was involved in both). The first allows you to pay property taxes online. In order to do that it posts all kind of information about you, your properties and your taxes. The second service is similar in that it allows you to search property parcel information and check assesment, ownership, past ownership, taxes, etc. I was more involved in the second system. The only security measure was to prohibit searching by owners name. In fact both systems just require an address. When discussing the issue with the politicians (elected Treasurer and elected Assessor) they both said that there goal was to reduce staff time and that the records are already public info. Very little concern was given even though myself and others brought up these same points.
In a time when the demands on government services is increasing but the taxes are decreasing (well in our state anyways) county agencies will do whatever they can to reduce the counter load.
The fact is that just about every corresponce with the government is public record. One example is the checks you mail in to pay your taxes. I was involved (over serous objections) with a project where a company outsourced by the Treasurer scans the front and back of the checks you mail in. The company then provides those images over the internet to the Treasurers staff. If you have questions about how you paid your taxes, you can walk in and see the check used, including signature. Technically this is public record and anyone can request the info.
The bigger question is what should be public. Right now the only things not public are County Health records (only specific things are restricted), preliminary evedince, Juvenile court documents, and certain sealed court records(stalking). Everything else is there.
To combat this many states have passed record retention laws. These say that you only have to keep things so long. The idea is that one we reduce storage costs and two if it is detroyed after so long than no one can request it.
Sorry guys but it is all public and until you change the laws on what can be public, government will continue to try things to reduce staff (remember you want lower taxes too).
Yours trully,
County IT Guy
You said it.
The real estate industry does this, too. They extract monopoly profits by restricting access to the MLS and by hiding comparables as much as they can.
On another note, the IRS has a reputation that they don't share tax returns with anyone, not even other government agencies. I don't know if this reputation is still valid or not though.
As of 5 minutes ago, they now only give the
city and zip code info...
Rudolph G on Gracie Mansion
just turned to
Rudolph G in Manhattan
.... That didn't take long..
Will this information being made public lead people to question the role of government in their lives? Will it make ordinary people realize why the government wants a Social Security Number on everything?
Note, however, that anybody can still buy the same CD-ROM with all NYC voter registration, just as they did.
In fact, I'm thinking about buying that CD-ROM and publishing it on FreeNet. Information wants to be free.
I do research with coroner's / medical examiners files. I've done this kind of research both in Australia (where the files are _not_ public domain) and in the US (where, at least in California, they are).
These files contain a _lot_ of information, much of it connected to people other than the deceased. For example, the files contain the names, phone numbers and addresses of next of kin. They contain notes made by social workers about the details of their conversations and grief counselling with next of kin.
I'm kind of twitchy that this information is available in the public domain in the US - I think a good idea (letting the general public have good access to information that lets people work out for themselves what sorts of things are killing people in their area (eg unusually high levels of certain kinds of cancer due to illegal dumping of X)) - has been poorly implemented.
If you want to stick 'public records' on line, you might regard this as a good opportunity to look at the threshold between genuinely public data (that Joe Smith died 1/1/2001 and here's the case report and toxicology) and stuff that might not be regarded as public domain if people thought about it in more detail (that Joe Smith's mum's name is Jane Smith and here's her phone number, home address, place of work and the intimate details of her grief counselling following her son's death).
Just my 2 cents.
What relationship is hidden here that allows the state this access?
1. Any record that you could normally see, or have the "right" to see, is made public via the Internet.
2. Anyone can go look at any of these records.
3. Access to the records requires a validated identity (which means a login and password).
4. To get a validated login, you must show up at a public place, prove your identity, and a smart card (or similar) will be issued to you.
5. You get a report sent to you of who looked at your records, and when.
If people know who's looking at their records, it would ease a lot of fears. It would also prevent abuse of the records (like marketers). People would then realize that their records aren't being looked at, or would be horrified at how often the information is requested.
The main thing here is: the information is public, but there is no right of anonymity when reviewing those records.
Universal access to free (or low cost) public records and publically produced data is a fabulous part of the US legal system that is practically unique in the world in its scope and openness. In 1977 when the Freedom of Information Act was passed, it really changed everything. Government was by and for the people it served. That law made government produced and maintained data open to just about anyone that asked. Putting those data on the internet just empowers citizens more.
There are things about individuals that are and should be public record. Who owns that piece of land? He does, and he's behind on his taxes. Is this guy a deadbeat dad behind on his child support? How much does this public employee earn?
The problem is, not that these data are available, but that they are occasionally used to cause individuals problems. To close access to them would be like shutting down the internet because some people get cracked.
between private entities collecting information from and about you and the government collecting information therefrom: the Government gets to TELL you what it wants to collect, and you have no choice but to secede from the Union, or accede to the invasion of privacy.
.gif photographs of me available along with drivers license information on the net without my consent.
One example is the collection of pet information. The government, for reasons of animal control and public good, requires that you register with it the details of your pet's vaccinations. In Florida, those documents are registered with the County and thus become public records. This information includes, by statute, your name, address, telephone number where pet resides(whether or not unlisted), veterinarian, address and number, pet, name, breed, age, date of last vaccination, type of medication given.
This information has been used to obtain lists of veterinary practice customers, but also to obtain telephone numbers of individuals at home for scamming (complete with great human engineering information like, "How is fluffy?").
The point here is that Florida's public records act didn't permit privacy of such information -- the government took it as a condition of having the pet. It took three years of litigation and an act of the legislature to put a stop to these abuses.
I would really prefer that the State not be obliged or even permitted to make
It is one thing to hold me accountable for maintaining my privacy by not disclosing information I hold dear, or only to do so discriminately. It is another thing when the government obtains, collects or forceably extracts that information.
Accordingly, public information ought to be more restricted in how it is made available.
You think this is bad? How about a tast of the future? Check this out :
http://mapsrv.co.clark.nv.us/openweb/
All your homeowner info incorporated into a GIS
database, showing a parcel map, and the latest
Arial Photo.....
click on the parcel and viola all the
linked data, taxes etc in one nice place.
Now all it needs is to tie in to a 3d plan made from your original blueprints. Perfect for planning that robbery of high-end homes,
or for big brother to take a look inside your house before they raid it, etc.
You think this is bad? How about a taste of the future? Check this out :
http://mapsrv.co.clark.nv.us/openweb/
All your homeowner info incorporated into a GIS
database, showing a parcel map, and the latest
Aerial Photo.....
click on the parcel and viola all the
linked data, taxes etc in one nice place.
Now all it needs is to tie in to a 3d plan made from your original blueprints. Perfect for planning that robbery of high-end homes,
or for big brother to take a look inside your house before they raid it, etc.
And hey curious about who your neighbors are?
click on the adjacent parcels to get their names....
Nice eh?
In most areas you have to PAY more for an unlisted number. And they still sell it once from when you first sign up.
Perhaps sites like this go over the top, perhaps society should rethink what records are "public," but the genie is out of the bottle.
-- I Am Not A Terrorist.
I agree that in this case candidates should have free access to the addresses of relevent registered voters, but is it necessary to also have the names rather than just the addresses? This also relates to the website where one can find out if someone is a registered voter. The address is unnecessary information that can be abused. The question is simply is Jane Doe a registered voter, not where does Jane Doe live. Also I think that access to the addresses of registered voters should be restricted to those who have a civic interest in having that information. This would prevent the potential for mass marketing campaigns based on address lists of registered voters.
That is already happening. There is a thriving and quite profitable industry in the selling of public record information from court and police records. People camp out in the lobbies of some offices, waiting for accident reports to come in. The information then goes to the highest bidders. Usually ambulance chasers and the like, but anybody can buy it.
Believe it or not, its from those same folks that the whole "net access to public docs" thing is meeting the most resistance. People in the information business want to continue getting paid. I think that as more public records become available, the average person is going to be able to access some of what is there, but real access and the fat pipes for it are probably going to go to the ones who pay their politicians in advance, rather than through taxes.
'Hail Eris, baby, hail Eris...pfffffffttt.' *cough* 'Yeah.'
that access to publicly available personal information be allowed, as long as those seeking the information also identify themselves and go on record as having looked at it.
Did they update the site? I don't see any addresses or political affiliations listed when I do a search. maybe they listened to the privacy complaints?
I got married "sectretly" in Reno, expecting that nobody could find out unless they travelled to Nevada and looked at the records. Were this info to appear on Google when searching on my name, a lot of people would be pretty angry, and some (us two) would be quite embarrased.
I'm all for having public info public. But I did this with the expectation that the info would only have a certain level of publicness. It doesn't seem fair to change the rules after I consented to them.
Noticed this at 03:31 August 25 EST:
You entered "giuliani" born on
5/28/44. Below are matching records on file with the New York Board of Elections as of July 6, 2001.
Select One:
There are records that match your last name and birthday but that have been disabled at someone's request. Please call 1-212-VOTE-NYC for registration status and information by phone.
[ ] I am not listed here, I need to register!
[ ] Oops! I think I made a mistake. Let me try again.
Just public.
Out of mere curiosity I can find out what STD's my neighbor got tested for in less than 100 keystrokes.
Yet we can't manage to do background checks on someone who wants to buy a GUN?
Our country has a lot of great things, but we definitely have some priorities out of whack.