Google Pushes To Open Public Records

AlHunt sends us an AP story on Google's push to help states open up their data to online searchers. Google is going about this in an evenhanded way, according to the story, and the results of its labors — initially in Arizona, California, Utah, and Virginia — will be available to all search engines, not just theirs. The move is being hailed by groups such as OpenTheGovernment.org, but the Electronic Privacy Information Center expressed concerns, given what they call Google's "checkered past" with regard to privacy on the Internet.

Comments

So when...

[Short Circuit]

So when are Google, the Library of Congress and the CIA going to combine and be simply known as the CIC?

(Literary reference. Hope I didn't get first post.)

Privacy

[NaCh0]

If privacy advocates are concerned about public records becoming more easily accessible, they should get laws passed that limit the collection of such data by the government. It seems like Google gets the criticism because their search engine is too good at doing what it is designed to do.

Re:Privacy

[Holmwood]

The above poster has it exactly right. I'll amplify. We shouldn't be worrying about governments redacting personal information, or even it being accessible via search engines; we should be worried about them collecting it in the first place.

Sure, the IRS needs to know your income, and the DMV should know whether or not you have 10 recent speeding tickets.

But I find the number of pieces of information that State, Federal, state-funded bodies, and legislative mandates (e.g. corporate information gathering and disclosure pursuant to governmental affirmative action directives) require from you seems to be going up and up.

This is rather disturbing.

Redacting, as the article suggests, is merely a half step. Setting a sunset on how long most information about you is available is a full step, and not collecting the information in the first place is better yet.

Re:Privacy

[Holmwood]

Fair question. I like privacy.

I also don't like the idea of some bureaucracy's picture of me defining me, especially if it's distorted.

I lean, slightly, to a libertarian perspective. Your mileage may vary; fair enough.

I really don't like the idea in our hyper-sensitive culture of some one (say) being able to look up (and granted, not all of these can be looked up -- at present) my ethnicity, my voting history, or every letter/report/form I've had to file with the government, whether or not I belonged to a gay/straight alliance in high school, or a Christian fellowship club in university. Or whether I asked for the Kosher or the Halal meal on my last airline flight.

These, frankly, are no one's business but my own, my family's and close personal friends.

I see data-mining as an expanding source of derivative information about people, to a disturbing degree.

There certainly are legitimate things (in my personal view) for people to know about. Does someone have a criminal record? Are they a sexual predator? Child molester? Have they been disbarred? What is their credit history (if a lender).

But I don't see increasing governmental information -- even if its universally accessible -- on us all as a uniform positive.

Let me now turn the question back on you. Do you? If so, can you please elucidate?

God no!

[nog_lorp]

Dear god, now anyone will be able to read public records. What is the world coming to?

Re:God no!

[tymbow]

I think you missed the privacy problem of public records - the issue is not whether such records are public or not but why they were made public. It was never intended that public records would be harvested by information brokers and marketers and data mined but that it exactly what will happen once easy access is provided to such data.

I don't mind (most) requirements for public records being public but what I do mind is when that data is then used for purposes other than for which it was intended. This is where we need privacy laws. I have no problem for example with having my name, address and phone number in the phone book for public use but I do have a problem when this information is abused by using it in ways that were not intended.

Fantastic news from a privacy standpoint!

[Wordplay]

We've always maintained this weird security-through-obscurity dichotomy with public records. Technically the information is available to everyone by law, but it's such a pain to get it that nobody bothers

This has given people a false sense of security when it comes to government data collation. I don't think most people realize just how much public information this out there that anyone with a few bucks and who knows who to ask can see it. On the flip side, it means there's almost no public benefit from the government keeping the information because it can't be easily collated by a private citizen.

This is the best thing that could happen--let's dump it all out on the net and make it easy to see someone's entire public record. Let's go for complete transparency and let public information really be public information. If the government really is overreaching, the outrage should be enough to throttle them back. And maybe they aren't; maybe this really is in the public interest. Now we can find out. Either way, it's going to force a resolution.

On another positive side note, this'll also gut the cottage ripoff industry that's grown around public records research. You shouldn't have to pay some PI wannabe $$ to walk across the street and meet his records-room friend at the Capitol.

How is this different from

[Nephster]

The Wisconsin Circuit Court Access (WCCA) ?

That site allows you to search any court case in WI. There are limitations - minors often aren't on there, and certain other cases are blocked from public access as well. But overall this has been a *good* thing.

Hell, I even once ran a girl I had started dating through there - and turned up three shoplifting convictions.

We always went to her place after that... :-)

Re:Porn

[Hack'n'Slash]

LINKS PLEASE!!!!