County report card · Colorado
Hinsdale County, Colorado
County portal uses an access restriction which deters automated access but may be bypassed by determined actors; its robots.txt also disallows automated access to 45 paths (/mining/, /dpa/dhr/dhrredo, /csrc/test/…)
- Population
- 747
- 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.txtYes — permissive
- Terms of useNot checked
- Bot challengeAccess denied to automated clients
- Owner notificationUnknown
Portal audited: www.colorado.gov/pacific/hinsdalecounty/assessors-office, www.colorado.gov/pacific/hinsdalecounty/hinsdale-county-clerk, www.colorado.gov/pacific/hinsdalecounty/treasurer-2
Doing well
- Technical barriers (access_denied) 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.