Online public records & privacy

It is outrageous and nothing to do with anyone's "right to information" that the state makes private information available to anyone and everyone. This is not just an issue for the USA but many other countries too.

Because records are "public", such as voter registration records, it does not follow that everyone should have equal access to them. The point, for instance, of the voter records, is so that checks can be made against names to check they are genuine and genuinely resident at theaddress given, so that they should be able to vote, if they want to or have to. How can someone in Mongolia do that on someone in Patagonia? The rcords are not for everyone to be able to build up personal profiles. Because some people talk of the web as a vast library, and libraries should hold as much informatin as possible, they seemt think there is no limit in principle or practice about what they can or should be able to put there. They may be very clever. But they do not seem to do much thinkingon the subject.

Good article, definite 5. I agree with Jonathan.

Even walking into a courthouse to retrieve information is a form of control. Posting all of that information on the net, while convenient, is too convenient. In our county, the assessment of properties were posted on the internet and it was combined with current census data. What a great way to allow child predators, robbers and other criminals to target victims then to provide them easy access to information that you would normally haveto retrieve in person at a central physical location. Until they can provide similar controls over the internet, public information should remain limited and a balance must be found between free access and privacy.

The key to this issue is WHAT is PUBLIC and WHAT is PRIVATE. ANYTHING that is PUBLIC should be available to ANYONE at ANYTIME without restriction. If it is contained at the County Recorder's Archive or ANY Court House Archive, it should be PUBLIC.

I think that personal privacy should go first and foremost. Public access should be controlled with stringent guidelines on when and how much personal information should be available. The level of availability of personal information now is only to the criminally mindeds favor.

It concerns me that anyone can retrieve any information about me or my loved ones at anytime. As much as I don't want to hear myself say it, our country needs to be more involved at what is being delivered electronically to us. I have no problem with the appropriate people having access to personal public records but there are so many dishonest people out there, this functionality needs to be measured and controlled. I take precautions with mail I receive by shredding it (those hundreds of credit card apps), what precautions can I take to protect myself from this?