Chet Culver, the governor of Iowa, informed IowaLandRecords.Org that it should immediately remove private information from its Website on September 2, 2008 after he learned that the site had uploaded documents containing Social Security numbers belonging to him; Michael Mauro, Iowa's Secretary of State; and his wife, Dorothy.

Yet, according to an article published in The Des Moines Register, only his information and that of the Secretary of State and his wife's was removed after the site learned of an article that stated its site's information could possibly lead to a higher incidence of identity theft. The information of thousands of other Iowans remains on the site, which is sponsored by the Iowa County Recorders Association.

The site provides information culled from the state's 99 counties and includes information from all of those counties' INSTANT SEARCHES databases. One of the greatest pieces of personal information provided to visitors of the site is the Social Security numbers of countless residents of the Hawkeye State. The site, which was launched in 2005, is frequently used by title examiners, mortgage brokers and attorneys who need access to the records it contains.

In a statement from his office, Culver's spokesman, Troy Price, intimated that the governor is very concerned about the privacy rights of Iowans and these concerns are what led him to contact the Website.

"Governor Culver is committed to protecting the privacy of Iowans, which is why he was disturbed to learn that the Social Security numbers of several Iowans, including his own, were available to be viewed by the public on a Website controlled by the Iowa County Recorders Association," Price said.

One examiner who works in the state indicated that many of the title professionals she knows tend to rely heavily upon the system. She said that her company has refrained from relying on the records because of problems that have allegedly been uncovered by others.

While the site has said that it has yet to implement any of Culver's suggestions, others are saying that the information it provides its users has been slightly modified.

"What they have actually done is disabled the imaging," said Jill Kissell, the manager of A-1 Abstracting and Research of Norwalk. "You can still do an index search, but our office doesn't rely on the online information to begin with. I personally feel that there are too many steps in the process and every additional step you add is just one more step where a mistake could be made."

Her concern is that if anything is left off the records during the online process, her office would have no idea of knowing about the problem unless a claim was filed on a completed search.

She noted that the state mandated that Social Security numbers be removed from the public record in 2002 and that most tax liens now have black bars on them where they once provided the Social Security numbers. But, problems exist with the images that were uploaded prior to 2002 as many have not had the Social Security numbers redacted from them.

County officials with the recorders association have indicated that individuals can request that their information be removed. Kissell remarked that the redaction of information once it has already been published does little to protect the state's residents. She said that once the information has been mined, there is no telling who has access to that sensitive information.

"Obviously this is a very important source of concern," said Phil Dunshee, one of IowaLandRecords.org's project managers, in response to the governor's recommendation. "We take it seriously. That's why we have the policies that we do."

Further investigation into the Website's practices uncovered that IowaLandRecords.org has been attempting to sell the information on its site to Data Tree, a leading real estate information database and considered by many to be a data-mining company.

"Iowa Land Records is a valuable and important resource to the real estate industry and to the citizens of Iowa," said Joyce Jensen, the Cass County recorder and the chairwoman of the Iowa Land Records board. "That value diminishes when information is restricted."

As Source of Title reported last week, the New Jersey Appellate Division recently ruled that data-mining companies should not be permitted to buy this information until they have paid the counties to redact sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers, from the land records.

The recorders association this year negotiated selling its mammoth database and ongoing updates to Data Tree, a company that manages more than 4 billion records nationwide. The Des Moines Register recently found unsigned documents that show Data Tree would have paid an estimated $11,750 a month for the information. The newspaper did note that the unsigned agreement would prohibit Data Tree from disclosing confidential information to any third party.

Yet, the sale was delayed after state legislators expressed some concern over the bulk sale of the records to a private business. Kissell also noted that she is concerned with the idea that the site's information could be sold to a private company.

She said that this information belongs to residents of the state and was not collected for this purpose. Adding that many people she talks with are unaware that their sensitive information is even published on county Websites, she said this would impair the privacy rights of countless unsuspecting Iowans.

The monthly funds that the site would receive from Data Tree would help offset many of the site's costs, Dunshee added. He said that the bulk format transfer of information would be more beneficial to companies because they would not be forced to search for information document by document.

"You've got companies that use this information for credit reports and other legitimate business purposes," Dunshee said. "These are not identity thieves we're talking about. They're in the real estate industry or their customers are in the real estate industry."

"If it's sold, it's gone," said Bill Blue, the president of the Land Title Association. "You can do all the redacting you want to your own records and it won't help."