Most of us think of outsourcing in terms of manufacturing jobs lost to low-wage workers in places like Mexico or China.  You may be surprised to find out, however, that the latest corporate trend in outsourcing isn't taking place at companies like Wal-Mart or Microsoft.  This time, it's the major title insurers, and they're shipping your sensitive personal information off to places like India, Pakistan, Nigeria and the Philippines to be made available worldwide with just the click of a mouse...all for the right price, of course.

Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, access to the sensitive personal information contained in literally millions of public record documents is available to anyone with Internet access according to David Bloys, owner of Davick Services of Shallowater, Texas, a noted expert in the field of public records security.  "If you're concerned about protecting your sensitive information from identity thieves, it isn't your wallet you need to watch, it's your local government," says Mr. Bloys, who publishes the online newsletter News for Public Officials.

It was that newsletter which broke the story of what is believed to be the largest single transfer of a county asset to a private company in Texas history when Fort Bend County Clerk Dianne Wilson sold every single document ever filed in that office to New Jersey-based Red Vision Systems, Inc.

"An asset that took Fort Bend County taxpayers 167 years to create and ten years to digitize was transferred to Florida in approximately 150 hours, " according to the article.  "Local taxpayers pay $1 a page for copies of their documents. Red Vision bought every document at the liquidation price of 10,000 pages for a dollar. With a mission to ‘revolutionize' the way banks, attorneys and title companies do business with local government, the company has more U.S. courthouses on its shopping list."

The newsletter cites example after example of how fraud, identity theft and other crimes have been facilitated by the ready availability of online government records.  Using commonly available software, criminals can can create official-looking documents by browsing government websites and pulling up documents listing names, dates of birth, mother's maiden names, scans of signatures, notary seals...everything the enterprising criminal needs to perpetrate the perfect crime.

Some county officials, however, have taken a proactive approach in protecting the security of their citizens.  A recent editorial in a Cleveland, OH newspaper was highly critical of Lake County Recorder of Deeds Frank Suponcic for his failure to respond to the bulk request of millions of public record documents from a company called Property Insight, an information broker which is a subsidiary of Fidelity National Financial, one of the nation's "big five" title insurers, whose market share is close to 29% of the market.  The editorial, which appeared in the January 8, 2008 edition of the News-Herald suggests that Mr. Suponcic's failure to respond timely to Property Insight's request is "a barrier that hinders openness" in government.

Mr. Suponcic is concerned that this bulk information can and will be made available online, and that because some of the documents contain sensitive personal information such as social security numbers and the like, the potential for illegal use is too great a risk to the security of the citizens of his county.  Furthermore, the cost to taxpayers for compliance with such a request amounts to thousands of dollars; yet Property Insight would only pay $1.00 plus postage for each CD, each of which can contain as many as 10,000 digitized images.  By contrast, the statutory rate for the average citizen walking in to request a copy of their deed or mortgage in most counties here in Pennsylvania is anywhere from .25¢ to .50¢ per page; in Ohio, it can be as much as $2.00 per page.  Most deeds average anywhere from four to five pages in length, while some mortgages can run as many as 21 pages long.

"Big Title" isn't taking no for an answer, though.  First American Title was among several other major title insurers which have recently gone to federal court against the Registers of Deeds of five Michigan counties to enforce their "right" to purchase public record documents in bulk for re-sale to third parties.  In a reversal of a lower court decision dismissing the case, the Court of Appeals for the 6^th Circuit held that, "the registers may not condition bulk discounts, non-paper reproduction, or reproduction of records generally, on the purchaser giving up his right to sell the official certified copies (or unofficial "copies of copies," or the information therein) to third parties."  First American Title, et al. v. DeVaugh, et al., 480 F. 3d 438 (6th Cir 2007).

Not surprisingly, the American Land Title Association (ALTA), the powerful trade industry lobbying group funded largely by the major title insurers, is also a proponent of the bulk distribution of public record information.  In a recent entry to his blog, Robert A. Franco, President of of VersaTitle Services, Ltd of Mansfield, Ohio and owner of the Source of Title website compared the official position of ALTA on this issue with that of the National Association of Land Title Examiners and Abstractors (NALTEA):

"Ultimately, it boils down to which side promotes the best interest of consumers. Local title agents and abstractors know the community and quirks involved in the local real estate conveyancing system. They are able to provide a superior level of service to the local citizens. When transferring property interests in their community, it is better to keep the system operating on a local level."

Yes, I have to admit to some bias here; title searches, once an exclusive function of small  independent abstractors like myself are gradually being replaced by large offshore operations, known as "thin" title plants in an effort to reduce overhead.  So yes, this does affect my livelihood; but as I've said before, a title insurance policy is only as good as the search that was relied upon to issue it, and by extension, the search is only as good as the abstractor who performed it.

By definition, "public records" should mean "public" within the sphere of influence of the local community to which the records relate.  It is quite a stretch to imagine that the intent was to make such records available to anyone around the world with a computer and an internet connection.  The outsourcing of functions which were once performed by local personnel to foreign lands such as India, Pakistan and the Philippines is a serious threat to the integrity and security of our public records.

Local citizens have a vested interest in maintaining the safety and security of the records they have entrusted to their elected officials.  Their tax dollars and recording fees subsidize the indexing and safekeeping of records relating to their most precious asset: their homes.  Anyone who travels to the local courthouse where the records are housed has always been, and is still able to access those records at any time during regular business hours.  The fact that technology has made such unfettered access possible does not mean that we should hand over the keys to our courthouses to foreign entities which may not necessarily have our best interests in mind.