County report card · Minnesota
Steele County, Minnesota
County website robots.txt blocks automated access
- Population
- 37,434
- 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 — blocks bots
- Terms of useNot checked
- Bot challengereCAPTCHA
- Owner notificationUnknown
Portal audited: www.steelecountymn.gov/recorder/index.php, steele.minnesotaassessors.com/, tapestry.fidlar.com, cpuimei.com/tax/disclaimer_value.asp?cid=74, www.co.steele.mn.us/link/jsfe/index.aspx
Doing well
- A robots.txt file that disallows automated scrapers
- Technical barriers (recaptcha) that deter casual bulk access
Room to grow
No gaps confirmed. Some checks could not be completed for this portal, so there may be room the audit could not see.
What to ask for
Building on the protections already in place, you might consider a property-owner notification system (like the ones AZ, FL, HI, IL, and UT have implemented) and a formal data-governance policy that addresses commercial data aggregators.
The full playbook is What Counties Can Do.