>> That dies provide an interesting example First off, ugh. I hate noticing typos in my comments after the edit period is over. I even emphasized this typo!

>> That dies provide an interesting example First off, ugh. I hate noticing typos in my comments after the edit period is over. I even emphasized this typo! :/ > First, Federal law prohibits the use of an SSN Good point. It's always confused me how that's true and how it's used in taxes though. Is it sufficient if it's only part of an identifier (e.g. SSN + last name)? > Second, a Corporation mechanical turking 1000's of people to datamine public records would not necessarily be easily caught by your system, especially since any body after collecting the data can disincorporate, and take the fruits of the operation with them to be reincorporated under another name; building larger and larger datasets each time. That's why there would be disclaimers on the access page (Federal crime to access this data on the part of a third party without disclosing third party, so people don't do it) and a license included with the data as to how it is allowed to be used, which should survive any company change. So, if turks think it's worth bypassing a clear message indicating they would be committing a crime, that's easily handled by the legal system. If a company thinks they can unincorporate and reincorporate to bypass a federal crime, I think they don't understand the legal system, and as long as the justice department pursues it, they'll likely have a hard time explaining where they got their data from (if they can even get people to supply their own SSNs to get it given clear indicators they would be committing a crime to do so). Really, the thing I would be more worried about it identify theft profiles being used, but as long as there is clear indication in some manner (a letter once a week/month to the tax address on record of the SSN, if that's legal) then it either wouldn't be lucrative to use those identities in that manner or people might get a fairly early indication that their identity has been stolen. It's an interesting thought experiment. If this were about anything other than pure information, then I think that would be entirely sufficient. Given we're talking about information that we're trying to control the flow of, and once it's entirely out (and in bulk) there's not much you can do, is it sufficient? I don't know. I think it's not really worse than just making it freely available though, some it's an alternative option given that we already see both ends of the spectrum in play right now in different places (e.g. nations that allow tax returns to be publicly seen with apparently little control other than logging, and nations that do not allow it).