The Tennessee Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling that data on school district computers may not be a public record, which would have to be determined on a case by case basis. Evan Brown discusses this case and provides the links.

The days of slipping unnoticed into a school to interview a teacher or student may become a distant memory if personal identification technology expands beyond this Florida district.

The Collier County Public School District has selected GVI Security to provide the the school district with an “enterprise-wide visitor ID verification and access management system to control access of visitors, vendors, and volunteers to its school facilities,” GVI Security said in a news release.

Amazon has a new angle on mapping and spacial imaging, available at A9.com. Unlike the aerial satellite photographs available through Google, A9 is collecting street level views, from the human perspective. A handful of cities, and those are only partially covered, have images available. But you might get lucky and find a snapshot of just the storefront you need.

Search for trucking companies by company name, location or owner/operator to get address, telephone number, email or owner names within a specific locale.

This Florida county is the first in the state to apply a computer software program to redact personal identifiers from newly filed documents, in preparation for possible reposting on the Internet. County websites no longer display court records, pending a decision from the Florida Supreme Court on electronic access.

A new law in Missouri requires any government agency posting personal information on the Internet to first obtain permission from elected and appointed officials before making their addresses available. But when this public information is available on everyone else, it’s a bit of a stretch to expect the public to accede to this double standard. Apparently someone got the message to the legislators. Read the article

Officials with cities and counties statewide expressed concerns about the bill as soon as it passed. Because there could be thousands of “elected or appointed” officials in Missouri, it would be impossible to comply with the law without taking down Web sites for county land records and property tax data, local officials said.

California SB 506 will add an additional group of public officials to the roster of those whose personal data is confidential. Keep this idea filed in the back of your hat. When subject to a potential threat, various government employees may apply to have their address and other identifiers removed from public records. In its current form, SB 506 deems the application for closure a public record. If the document exists, you’ll know that the subject has convinced another public official that “a life threatening circumstance” exists that impels the request for confidentiality.

This bill would require a local elections official to extend this confidentiality of voter registration information to specified public safety officials, upon application, as specified, for a period of no more than two years, if the local elections official is authorized to do so by his or her county board of supervisors. The application of a public safety official would be a public record.

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer is seeking comments on several questions that have been submitted for opinions regarding access to public records. One query, from Assembly Member Jay La Suer (R-La Mesa), implies that some politicians view journalists as lower life forms:

With respect to a request for the address of an individual arrested by a law enforcement agency, where the requester declares under penalty of perjury that the request is made for a journalistic purpose (Gov. Code section 6254, subd. (f)(3)), may the agency require that the requester present subscriber lists, distribution lists, copies of past publications, proof of membership in a press trade association, display a press identification permit issued by a California law enforcement agency, or qualify as a journalist in a judicial action (e.g., Evid. Code section 1070, Gov. Code sections 6020-6027?

And turn your pockets inside out while you’re at it!

I do a fair amount of genealogical research related to tracing principals in long defunct companies or building family trees for real state quite title matters. Surname spellings vary quite a bit, especially in old or handwritten records. Then there’s the familiar situation that your client only has a phonetic spelling. You might start your search for last name variations at this site, which provides lists of names organized alphabetically.

The Florida Supreme Court Committee on Privacy and Court Records just released its complete report on recommendations for balancing the requirements of open records with the more recent demand for greater privacy of personal information. Read the full report or go to this pdf of the section on public access to electronic records. Or, grab a quick bite.