The website, LeadsOnline.com, allows law enforcement agencies to "search for suspects and stolen property across secondhand stores, scrap metal dealers, pawnshops and Internet drop-off stores . . ."
. . . Oneida County businesses that fall into those categories will be required to register with the website by April 1, and to then upload their transaction information on a daily basis . . . (emphasis added)According to the website's About page
. . . we help businesses, which are typically required by law to report their transactions to law enforcement, by making reporting easier and more efficient. From secondhand dealers, pawnshops, and gold buyers to pharmacies and scrap metal dealers, we help each of them reduce the hassles of reporting. The vast majority of the transactions taking place in those businesses are completely legitimate, but reporting laws exist because a relative few are related to criminal activity on the part of the customer or some other party. . . (emphasis added)But "the website" is NOT "law enforcement" and it is NOT a government agency. It admits so. It is a private entity.
When disposing of items it is not unusual for a dealer to take a thumbprint, a signature, and make a copy of your drivers license. How much of this information will be "uploaded" to the "website?" What assurance do you have that YOUR information will be kept private? Will you become a "suspect" because your name is in their database? You may deal with a dealer whom you trust (because you know him or her), but your dealer is now going to be "required" by Oneida County to share this information with a third party over which neither you, your dealer, nor the County will have control. Per the website's data access agreement:
"TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMISSIBLE BY LAW, LEADS DISCLAIMS ALL REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WHATSOEVER INCLUDING FOR ANY BREACH OF SECURITY ASSOCIATED WITH THE TRANSMISSION OF SENSITIVE INFORMATION TO LEADS OR THROUGH THE WEBSITE."While there is no reason to believe that the website isn't run by a reputable company with a great product -- and the people running the operation certainly look like nice people -- shouldn't the choice be YOURS who has access to your private transaction information? -- or at least the choice be of the person you choose to do business with? With the collection of such information into one place, isn't there a potential for abuse? If you are in financial distress and visit pawn shops regularly, do you want that information out there?
Should the County be choosing who has access to your private information?
While the database may make the police's job easier, this forced-sharing of information with a 3rd party over whom no one has control is troubling.
What do you think?
9 comments:
How much are we the county taxpayers paying for this "service"? Did the county enter into an agreement with this company? I do not want to pay for this .
More big government....pretty soon China will be considered having more freedom for the people than the US.
I'm wondering if the Sheriff's department has fallen prey to a scam similar to the old Fire Department Donation deal. Where a company uses the fire company's name (and gives them less than 10% of the collections) to call citizens and represent themselves as fireman seeking donations. Here the currency might be site advertising instead of money .. or both.
I'm no lawyer, but it would take a judge to convince me that as a private business I must upload my transactions to the website of another business because they think they're performing a civic function. Yeah, sure. See you in court.
This is nothing more than a data collection agency. It is a governmental agency forcing us to buy a service (just like obamacare).It is all about $$$.
When did the Board of Legislators approve this contract?
This practice is more treacherous than “Obama Care” in terms of entrusting public information with an unregulated private entity. Further danger lurks as “fly-by-night” internet companies’ spring up to undercut their competition just to cash in on the lucrative confidential information. Soon illegal operators in countries like Kenya will have a new source for identity theft activity. Subsequently these companies will file for bankruptcy as they get sued for their negligence. And ultimately, by default, Oneida County taxpayers will have to pay for these expensive law suits. At times, our government’s incompetence is acutely alarming!
This practice is more treacherous than “Obama Care” in terms of entrusting public information with an unregulated private entity. Further danger lurks as “fly-by-night” internet companies’ spring up to undercut their competition just to cash in on the lucrative confidential information. Soon illegal operators in countries like Kenya will have a new source for identity theft activity. Subsequently these companies will file for bankruptcy as they get sued for their negligence. And ultimately, by default, Oneida County taxpayers will have to pay for these expensive law suits. At times, our government’s incompetence is acutely alarming!
If you'd read a little further on the LeadsOnline website, you might have learned that:
1. The information the businesses use the site to report is information that they have to report anyway. It's the method that differs, not the information that is reported.
2. Only law enforcement has access to the information from more than one business. Businesses can look at the information they enter but not the information entered by other businesses.
3. The statement you quote in all caps refers to possible breaches of security -- related to the business' method of collection. LeadsOnline is saying if someone enters information they should not have had, LeadsOnline will not take responsibility for that information having been entered.
4. You and I were viewing the public pages of their site. None of the collected information is available there. It's all behind a security system, accessed by a login. The information there is no more public than the same information typed into a paper form and sent in now.
5. By using the technology this company has developed, our county law enforcement does not have to manage huge amounts of paper and search through it manually or develop the technology themselves.
I think this solution is a win for law enforcement, LeadsOnline, and us taxpayers. I can't begrudge LeadsOnline their profits. They took the risk in developing the product. They take the risk of keeping the system secure. We taxpayers saved a bunch of money and get a better system too.
Last Anonymous, all five points appear reasonable, but have you considered the following?
1. "Confidential" is getting to mean not much any more for information entered on the Internet. But even supposing it is, selling scrubbed summaries of data could be a lucrative business for Leads On Line and the amount of info sought for each transaction from private businesses could rapidly escalate putting further burden on the businesses.
2. Call me paranoid, but I'm not comfortable with law enforcement looking at more information about my business than is necessary. For one thing it isn't prudent. For another, some pretty nifty crime schemes have been perpetrated by cops.
3. You're probably right, but the specter raised of a rogue company with all that data is conceivable.
4. Again, theoretically true. Except that a piece of paper has a very limited exposure to the wrong eyes when compared to data on the world wide web and to Uncle Harry whose PC breaks one morning and gives his nephew the password so he can get the information for him. Or hackers, of course.
5. Perhaps you have access to information we don't, but I'd have to see some operational details before I could come to the same conclusion. I don't know how many man hours local agencies might save, for example, nor whether those hours would be put to good use. And of course I don't know for sure, but I find it hard to believe that the current system isn't sufficiently indexed to be useful to Law Enforcement already.
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