On February 28 the EC3 Real ID Workgroup had an excellent presentation and discussion concerning public records. Here is a link, http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9012221&pageNumber=1 ,to a story now unfolding in Texas with versions and variations occuring across the U.S. The Texas Attorney General has issued a ruling that the practice conducted by county clerks (and by extension other government personel) of publishing on the Internet various public documents that include personal information, such as social security numbers, "is a criminal offense punishable by jail time and fines." The ruling does not say that the information is not public, that access to the information should be restricted nor that changes be made to the information included in these records, etc., just that it is illegal to publish public information in this particular manner and that the clerks in this case have a responsibility for the content.
It is worthwhile to reference www.cspra.org website and read The Public Record: Information Privacy and Access--A New Framework for Finding the Balance by Richard Varn and Fred Cate to understand another point of view on this topic. Broad societal naivete and misunderstanding of what information is and is not public energizes a large proportion of the discussion related to the Real ID Act. A first step to conducting a productive discussion on the potential effects of Real ID on privacy and personal information is to understand what information is or is not private. It seems misguided to to blame the Real ID Act for making public information less private. by Dan Combs
Comments