County report card · Maine
Aroostook County, Maine
County portal uses Cloudflare bot detection which deters automated access but may be bypassed by determined actors; its robots.txt also disallows automated access to 24 paths (/wp-admin/, /wp-login.php, /wp-content/uploads/wpforms/…)
- Population
- 66,776
- 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 challengeCloudflare bot detection
- Owner notificationUnknown
Portal audited: www.searchiqs.com/mearn/, maine.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=28e35c8fcf514d2685357b78bdd0b246, aroostook.me.us/
Doing well
- Technical barriers (cloudflare) 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.