Mass Media and News Affiliates Create Increase in Public Record Requests

Public records have been public and have never been argued about - until now. Because public records have been displayed online for people to access around the world, people are concerned about the availability of their personal information to strangers. They're upset and believe this information shouldn't have been available in the first place. Some people believe that just because a record is made public for viewing when requested, it does not give anyone permission to post it where everyone can read it just out of curiosity and not genuine concern.

Because of the mass media and news affiliates public record requests have been on the rise, bringing attention to certain places and certain people. The internet is the number one place to access these articles produced by media because they now post them to attract more viewers to their site and hopefully to their paper. Some of the public records that the media and news affiliates are mentioning online are about public meetings, school meetings and concerns, public safety issues, and more. These public discussions are made public world wide.

The concern is over how much these meetings and discussions need to be posted online. In school meetings there may be a name mentioned or an email address or phone number that may slip up in the article and be published. Although mistakes happen, what gets posted can never be taken away. Records of public meetings can inform someone online how prepared the town is in an emergency or how they are handling serious issues. A copy of the meeting may be accessed online or by going into the office and obtaining a copy of the meeting that has been documented.