Why Public Records Are Not Free Online
Thursday, December 16th, 2010You’ve probably heard the phrase “public records,” but do you know what it means? Generally speaking public records are those records that the public can access without restriction (mostly). The disclosure is because the records were made open voluntarily, or because some government transactions or archives require this to be the case. Most of these records have personal or even private information within.
Government agencies at all levels, from local through state and even federal, keep public records. All of these records are supposed to be free because they were disclosed for the purposes of public access.
To access public records, you go to the proper government agency. Then you simply put in a request for the record that you want, and wait for the response. The public record, if found, will be given or sent to you. You may be asked to pay a nominal fee for technical expenses.
Why do some online search sides charge you for access to these documents, then, if they are supposed to be free? There are several reasons.
One reason a site may ask you to pay is that they themselves purchased the documents from government agencies.
On some other sites, the document is free but the search service isn’t. It costs a good bit of money to maintain a huge, complex database for you to search.
People who need quick access to records but can’t pay should not be worried. You can also get online access to these records for free. Try to find the right sites to use by going to a search engine and searching for “public record access free sites.”
Some of these will be private websites that allow free searching, though often the database is smaller than are those that charge. You can also find websites that have links to government websites that allow online searching for records.
See more of this writer’s articles regarding subjects such as dlp projectors and the digital video projector.