County report card · California
Marin County, California
County portal uses Cloudflare bot detection which deters automated access but may be bypassed by determined actors
- Population
- 256,400
- Portal
- Assessor & Recorder
- Portal vendor
- Not identified
What the audit checked
Four low-cost protections every online records portal can have. How we rate counties.
- robots.txtNot checked
- Terms of useNot checked
- Bot challengeCloudflare bot detection
- Owner notificationUnknown
Portal audited: apps.marincounty.gov/RecordersIndexSearch, www.marincounty.org/depts/ar/property-information/assessment-and-property, www.marinmap.org/Html5Viewer/Index.html?viewer=smmdataviewer, apps.marincounty.org/taxbillonline
Doing well
- Technical barriers (cloudflare) that deter casual bulk access
Room to grow
No gaps confirmed. Some checks could not be completed for this portal, so there may be room the audit could not see.
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.