County report card · New Jersey
Somerset County, New Jersey
County portal uses Cloudflare bot detection which deters automated access but may be bypassed by determined actors
- Population
- 357,467
- Portal
- Assessor & Recorder
- 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: liveacclaim.co.somerset.nj.us/AcclaimWeb/, www.taxdatahub.com/62322899fa390ea73997514b/Somerset%20County, experience.arcgis.com/experience/efb1be0ae9c04804b408255ceb146c76
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.