County report card · Kansas
Stafford County, Kansas
County portal uses reCAPTCHA verification which deters automated access but may be bypassed by determined actors; its robots.txt also disallows automated access to 2 paths (/ajax/, /apps/)
- Population
- 3,901
- 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: www.staffordcounty.org/appraiser--zoning.html, www.staffordcounty.org/register-of-deeds.html, ks526.cichosting.com/ttp/tax/Search/search_tax.aspx, www.kansasgis.org/orka/intro.cfm?countyName=Stafford
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.