County report card · Michigan
Isabella County, Michigan
County portal uses reCAPTCHA verification which deters automated access but may be bypassed by determined actors; its robots.txt also disallows automated access to 1 path (/wp-admin/)
- Population
- 65,072
- 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 useSilent on automation
- Bot challengereCAPTCHA
- Owner notificationUnknown
Portal audited: www.isabellacounty.org, www.isabellacounty.org/departments/community-development/gis-mapping/interactive-gis-map/, www.fetchgis.com/isabellaweb/rma/IsabellaMapViewer.html#, countyfusion11.kofiletech.us/countyweb/loginDisplay.action?countyname=IsabellaMI, www.isabellacounty.org/departments/treasurer/
Doing well
- Technical barriers (recaptcha) that deter casual bulk access
Room to grow
- Expanding the robots.txt file to disallow automated scrapers
- Updating the Terms of Use to prohibit automated access
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.