County report card · Alabama
Winston County, Alabama
County portal uses reCAPTCHA verification which deters automated access but may be bypassed by determined actors; its robots.txt also disallows automated access to 6 paths (/ajax/, /apps/, /https://wwnrepevents.blogspot.com/…)
- Population
- 23,869
- Portal
- Assessor
- Portal vendor
- Not identified
What the audit checked
Four low-cost protections every online records portal can have. How we rate counties.
- robots.txtYes — permissive
- Terms of useNot checked
- Bot challengereCAPTCHA
- Owner notificationUnknown
Portal audited: winstonproperty.assurancegov.com/Property/Search, www.alabamagis.com/winston/, www.winstoncountyprobate.org/Default.asp?ID=40&pg=Records+Department, www.winstoncountyms.org/
Doing well
- Technical barriers (recaptcha) that deter casual bulk access
Room to grow
- Expanding the robots.txt file to disallow automated scrapers
What to ask for
Three low-cost steps that have worked in other counties to close gaps like this one:
1. Adding clear robots.txt rules that disallow automated scrapers
2. Updating the Terms of Use to prohibit automated access
3. Implementing a notification system that alerts residents when their records are accessed
The full playbook is What Counties Can Do.