09:07 PM CDT on Tuesday, June 20, 2006

KVUE News

KVUE News

The Travis County clerk removed online records citing the threat of identity theft.

It just became impossible to look up millions of public records from Travis County on the Internet. The Travis County clerk announced this week her office will stop publishing public records online because of privacy concerns.

Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir took the records off-line because she feared someone could take personal information -- like Social Security numbers -- and steal an identity.

"I am a strong supporter of open government; however, my obligation as an elected official is to respond to legitimate public concern and to do everything within my authority to protect people now," DeBeauvoir said.

DeBeauvoir said her staff has been working to remove Social Security numbers and other personal information from online documents since the Legislature gave counties the authority to do so in 2005. She said her staff thought they could continue to work as normal to complete the job, but the volume of documents is too large. That's why they took all the documents off-line.

The documents will be restored online as they finish the process.

"For 150 years, the goal has been to make government open and records accessible," DeBeauvoir said. "With the increasing threat of personal identity theft, we have to rethink how to do that."

But all of the information, social security numbers and all, is still available on public records in the clerk's office.

"There's no law that says I have to put them on line. We only did that for convenience," DeBeauvoir said. "That's the part we're gonna try to work on and you know... clean up those records and then restore the convenience."

Some people are upset with the change.

"I don't see the point. I think it's just an inconvenience for a lot of people," said Beverly Russeau, who studies public information for a living.

Others don't have a problem with the county clerk's decision. They say it's just as easy, if not easier, to go to the county clerk's office for important documents.

"It's a lot quicker collecting them here because online it takes a longer to actually get to the record, so I come here to get the records that are already online," said Georgiann Lopez.

On the Internet, you can still get an index telling you a document exists, but you've got to order it or go down to the clerk's office to get a copy. DeBeauvoir hopes to have the records back online within a year.