County report card · Illinois
Knox County, Illinois
County website Vendor (DevNet / GovOS) prohibits automated data harvesting
- Population
- 48,716
- Portal
- Assessor & Recorder
- Portal vendor
- DevNet / GovOS
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 challengeCloudflare bot detection
- Owner notificationAvailable
Portal audited: www.knoxclerk.org/CountyDepartments.htm, www.knoxcountyil.gov/departments/county_recorder/index.php, tapestry.fidlar.com, knoxil.devnetwedge.com/, knoxcountyil.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=dc417ecbf34f49368c0b3c4dff7a60b9, www.knoxcountyil.gov/departments/county_treasurer/index.php
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 (cloudflare) 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.