County report card · Minnesota
Beltrami County, Minnesota
County portal uses reCAPTCHA verification which deters automated access but may be bypassed by determined actors; its robots.txt also disallows automated access to 5 paths (/bin/, /config/, /install/…)
- Population
- 46,762
- Portal
- Assessor & Recorder
- Portal vendor
- Fidlar Technologies
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: beltramitax.co.beltrami.mn.us/taxsearch.aspx, www.co.beltrami.mn.us/Departments/Recorder/Recorder.html, tapestry.fidlar.com, www.co.beltrami.mn.us/Departments/gis/gis.html, propertyportal.co.beltrami.mn.us/search/commonsearch.aspx?mode=combined
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.