County report card · Wisconsin
Lafayette County, Wisconsin
County portal uses Cloudflare bot detection which deters automated access but may be bypassed by determined actors; its robots.txt also disallows automated access to 33 paths (/core/, /profiles/, /README.md…)
- Population
- 17,306
- 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 useNot checked
- Bot challengeCloudflare bot detection
- Owner notificationUnknown
Portal audited: www.lafayettecountywi.org/treasurer/page/real-property-lister, www.lafayettecountywi.org/deeds, lafay.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=2b7233d6dbf2418c9ced28f6b7e836d1, tapestry.fidlar.com, www.lafayettecountywi.org/treasurer, maps.sco.wisc.edu/Parcels/
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.