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".

Comments

Public?

[bogado]

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. :-/

pillars of privacy and public records

[pjones]

Robert Ellis Smith of Privacy Journal lists what he calls the 6 Pillars of Privacy (interestingly enough Senators that I've heard speak drop the last two and you'll see why):

1. Notice (you need to know information is being collected)
2. Choice (you need to know if and how you can opt out or in; for government info this you may not have an option and you should be informed of that as well)
3. Access (you should be able to access any information collected about you; in government records this is covered by FOIA, but business is not so covered in all cases)
4. Security (you should know if others are allowed access and in cases of no public access that restriction should be made secure)
5. Accuracy (you should be able to demand that the information kept about you be accurate; interestingly enough this is one that's been dropped)
6. Restricted Use (no unathorized secondary use of such data. South Carolina cannot sell its Drivers License database says the Supreme Court, but again businesses are not always so restricted)

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).

What happened to nformation wants to be free?

[jmichaelg]

I'm bemused by the large number of "they shouldn't be allowed to publish that" comments. If this was youdontneedtoknowthat.com, I'd understand it better.

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.

Privacy by Obfuscation IS worse, not better

[bwt]

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.