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Immediate Steps Counties Can Take to Reduce Risk and Regain Control
County systems are already being accessed, scraped, and reused at scale. Waiting increases exposure—not just to system strain, but to privacy violations, fraud risk, and loss of control over how public data is used.
The good news is that meaningful protection does not require a full system overhaul. Counties can begin taking action immediately with practical, targeted steps that improve visibility, accountability, and control.
This page outlines how to move from awareness to action.
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Public Comment Script
3-Minute County Data Protection Statement
Use this ready-to-read public comment script to address county commissioners about bot scraping, AI-driven fraud risks, and public records exposure—no appointment required.
"Good evening, commissioners. My name is [Your Name], and I'm a [resident / title professional / concerned citizen] in [County Name].
"I'm here to talk about something most residents don't know: right now, bots and AI systems can access our county's property records portal and download data on every property owner in [County Name] — names, addresses, mortgage details — with no restrictions."
"A March 2026 audit of nearly 2,400 county portals found that 43% have no bot protection at all. And it's not just outsiders — companies like ATTOM Data Solutions and BatchData receive direct data feeds from over 3,000 counties and resell that data to anyone."
"The National Association of Realtors found that 63% of real estate professionals have encountered title fraud in the past year. Deloitte projects AI-enabled fraud will reach $40 billion by 2027. And this data puts domestic violence survivors at direct risk when their home addresses become commercially available."
"I'm asking the board to take three immediate steps that cost nothing:
- Audit all existing data-sharing agreements with commercial companies
- Update our website Terms of Use to prohibit automated scraping
- Direct IT to implement basic protections — robots.txt, rate limiting, CAPTCHA
"I have a Research Briefing and County Action Guide available for the board. Thank you."
Follow-Up Email (After Meeting)
Keep County Data Protection Moving
Send within 24 hours. Attach the Research Briefing, Action Guide, and Fact Sheet (3 attachments max).
Subject: Thank You — Public Records Protection Materials Attached
Dear [Name],
Thank you for taking the time to meet with me about protecting [County Name]'s public records from automated data harvesting.
As discussed, I've attached three documents:
- Research Briefing — The full evidence base on automated harvesting threats
- County Action Guide — Step-by-step actions organized by difficulty (start with Tier 1)
- Fact Sheet — One-page summary of key statistics and audit findings
I'd recommend starting with the Tier 1 audit of existing data-sharing agreements — it costs nothing and gives you a clear picture of your county's current exposure.
I'm happy to serve as an ongoing resource, and I can also connect you with other counties that have already begun implementing protections.
Thank you again for your commitment to [County Name]'s residents.
[Your Name]
Download & Share With County Officials
Public Records Safety has created a printable awareness flyer designed for county clerks, recorders, IT administrators, assessors, and public records departments. This resource explains the growing risks tied to uncontrolled bot scraping, mass data harvesting, privacy exposure, and operational strain on county record systems.
The flyer is designed to help vendors, abstractors, title professionals, and concerned stakeholders start productive conversations with local government offices about responsible public record access and stronger portal protections.
Sample robots.txt for County Sites
# Block AI training bots from county property records
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: anthropic-ai
Disallow: /
User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /
User-agent: Bytespider
Disallow: /
# Allow legitimate search engines
User-agent: Googlebot
Allow: /
User-agent: Bingbot
Allow: /Sample Technical Resources
Copy-paste resources your county IT team to implement immediately.
Sample Terms of Use Language
Add to your county website's Terms of Use page:
"Automated access to this website, including but not limited to scraping, crawling, data mining, or bulk downloading of records, is prohibited without prior written authorization from [County Name]. Use of bots, scripts, or automated tools to access, search, or download data from this site constitutes a violation of these Terms of Use and may be subject to legal action. This prohibition does not restrict individual, manual searches by members of the public for legitimate purposes."
Take action for your county
Find out how your county records office stacks up, and what it takes to close the gap. It only takes a few minutes to look up your county and reach out.
Questions? Email info@publicrecordssafety.com