County report card · Minnesota
Houston County, Minnesota
Vendor (Simplifile) policy on automation has not been resolved
- Population
- 18,352
- Portal
- Assessor & Recorder
- Portal vendor
- Simplifile
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 challengeNone detected
- Owner notificationUnknown
Portal audited: www.co.houston.mn.us/departments/recorder/#main-tabs-3, www.co.houston.mn.us/departments/recorder/#main-tabs-4, www.co.houston.mn.us/departments/assessor/, www.co.houston.mn.us/departments/recorder/, www.co.houston.mn.us/departments/recorder/#main-tabs-7
Doing well
No protections against automated access were found in this audit.
Room to grow
- Expanding the robots.txt file to disallow automated scrapers
What to ask for
Three low-cost protections that residents in other counties have found valuable:
1. Adding robots.txt rules that disallow automated scrapers
2. Including a Terms of Use that prohibits automated access
3. Implementing a notification system that alerts residents when their records are accessed (per the AZ, FL, HI, IL, UT model)
The full playbook is What Counties Can Do.