County report card · Illinois
Cook County, Illinois
County website Vendor (Kofile / Granicus) prohibits automated data harvesting
- Population
- 5,182,617
- Portal
- Assessor & Recorder
- Portal vendor
- Kofile / Granicus
What the audit checked
Four low-cost protections every online records portal can have. How we rate counties.
- robots.txtYes — permissive
- Terms of useProhibits automation
- Bot challengereCAPTCHA
- Owner notificationAvailable
Portal audited: www.cookcountyassessor.com/advanced-search, www.cookcountyil.gov/service/property-tax-portal, www.cookcountyclerkil.gov/service/search-recordings, www.cookcountytreasurer.com/payment.aspx?ntopicid=3, gisapps.cityofchicago.org/mapchicago/, maps.cookcountyil.gov/cookviewer/mapViewer.html
Doing well
- A Terms of Use that prohibits automated access to records
- A notification system that alerts residents when their records are accessed
- Technical barriers (recaptcha) that deter casual bulk access
Room to grow
- Expanding the robots.txt file to disallow automated scrapers
What to ask for
Building on the protections already in place, you might consider a property-owner notification system (like the ones AZ, FL, HI, IL, and UT have implemented) and a formal data-governance policy that addresses commercial data aggregators.
The full playbook is What Counties Can Do.