Sunlight or sunburn: a survey of attitudes toward online availability of US public records

Authors:
Sean A. Munson;Daniel Avrahami;Sunny Consolvo;James Fogarty;Batya Friedman;Ian Smith
Affiliations:
School of Information, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI;Intel, Santa Clara, CA and The Information School, University of Washington, Seattle, WA;Human Centered Design and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA;Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA;The Information School, University of Washington, Seattle, WA;Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Venue:
Information Polity - Special issue on Open Government and Public Participation: Issues and Challenges in Creating Public Value
Year:
2012

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Abstract

Many have enthusiastically greeted the ability to search and view public records online as a great advance for transparency and accountability. Such ability, however, also creates value tensions with privacy and other important human values. In this paper, we report findings from a survey of 134 residents of the US Pacific Northwest on their awareness of and attitudes towards online access to political campaign records and real estate transaction histories, bringing to light some of the social implications of technological changes that increase ease of access to public records. We show that. while respondents often understood the reason behind making these records public, considerable concern about the current accessibility of these records exists, along with a precautionary indication that such open access may reduce public participation for some individuals.