You can go to every counties appraisal district website and lookup anybody's address. You can hide it through a process but why is that not the default? There are hundreds of data broker websites with all your info, family info, past residences, emails, cars. And it's not 100% accurate.

In this modern world where almost everything is online, there are always data breaches. What safeguards are in place for people?

Dan Scott said:

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You can go to every counties appraisal district website and lookup anybody's address. You can hide it through a process but why is that not the default? There are hundreds of data broker websites with all your info, family info, past residences, emails, cars. And it's not 100% accurate.

In this modern world where almost everything is online, there are always data breaches. What safeguards are in place for people?

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It's the government and, as such, is always on the up-and-up and completely effective and efficient, Mofo!

People released the data because the new tech or service was so cool that it was "worth it". You gave up your identity when you purchased the iPhone or joined Facebook, hell even to TexAgs to some extent (though they seem much better than most regarding data collecting and what you need to disclose to the site and their protection thereof - good job IMO).

You ability to control or opt out of this data collection requires you give up these services.

Now, why to these tech companies and service providers demand this in exchange? Well, that's how they make money and you would not pay the premium it would take to offset that revenue stream.

Tl;dr That's just the way it is…

CAD info is public. Even with the confidentiality form approved, some CADs still list everything except the owner's info (Brazos county does it this way). Others don't even list the property at all, such as Austin county. You can go to the CAD office and look at the card on file and get a sketch of the structures as well. In some states, the sketch is posted online.

This is a great question and I'm really not ever sure of the answer from an individual frustrated with the sheer volume of so calls, texts, etc. We moved last year and opened up a VA mortgage to pay for the new home. We're also self employed. Between those two things alone I get a dozen calls, texts, paper mail and emails a week about refinancing the house and buying health insurance. Add that to the volume of crap calls that amount to scams, bank fraud, phishing, etc and it's nonstop. Oh and the half dozen piece of mail a week offering credit cards to the businesses I do or used to own. I have no clue what to do to make it stop. It's such a colossal waste of time. I'm not on Facebook or any other social media other than TexAgs. The house and health insurance has to have come from public records being sold which definitely doesn't seem like a proper role of government if you're naive like me and think their job is to serve the people. It's incredibly frustrating, for sure.

So long as we pay property taxes all our property info needs to be publicly accessible otherwise we would never have any basis for appealing unlike appraisals.

I've always wondered about the CAD data being public as well. Your name just out there for the world to see unless you have it in a trust or some other vehicle. It seems like you could at least do some level of masking the owners while still making the rest of the data public.

Yet, they will hide some of the exemptions for "privacy reasons". But not your name! lol.

lb3 said:

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So long as we pay property taxes all our property info needs to be publicly accessible otherwise we would never have any basis for appealing unlike appraisals.

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Interestingly, my neighbor is an elected official. The appraised value of their home was far less than everyone else in the area, and people complained. Their home happens to be delisted from CAD now. Strange how that works.

AustinAg2K said:

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lb3 said:

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So long as we pay property taxes all our property info needs to be publicly accessible otherwise we would never have any basis for appealing unlike appraisals.

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Interestingly, my neighbor is an elected official. The appraised value of their home was far less than everyone else in the area, and people complained. Their home happens to be delisted from CAD now. Strange how that works.

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Even if delisted, you can usually still access most of that data in person. It would be fun to use their properties as comps to get your appraisal lowered.

AustinAg2K said:

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lb3 said:

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So long as we pay property taxes all our property info needs to be publicly accessible otherwise we would never have any basis for appealing unlike appraisals.

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Interestingly, my neighbor is an elected official. The appraised value of their home was far less than everyone else in the area, and people complained. Their home happens to be delisted from CAD now. Strange how that works.

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Rules for thee strikes again.

This is a problem that presented itself because of the internet age. This kind of information has always been public, it's part of our republic that the government's information belongs to the people, and property appraisal values and records of ownership are no different. The problem isn't that the info is public, it's that it's all online and easily accessible to effectively anybody in the world who cares to look.

In this world, laws have not caught up to technology. The best law out there at the moment for privacy protection is the EU's GDPR, which grants the right to be forgotten, where people can demand a company delete any and all information they have about that person, and the company must comply. It isn't perfect, and doesn't solve everything, but it's better than anything else out there right now.

YouBet said:

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I've always wondered about the CAD data being public as well. Your name just out there for the world to see unless you have it in a trust or some other vehicle. It seems like you could at least do some level of masking the owners while still making the rest of the data public.

Yet, they will hide some of the exemptions for "privacy reasons". But not your name! lol.

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Some CADs, (HCAD being one of them) allow you to change your name to "current owner". I've done that for my property. HCAD's process is as easy as filling out a form, but I don't think all counties are the same. I knew someone in Montgomery County who tried to get theirs changed, and the CAD wanted a "reason" (ie, were they a public official or was there a court issued restraining order).

Problem is, my CAD account is current owner, but all four of the tax entities that I pay have my name associated with the address on those online accounts, all of which are searchable by address. Current owner doesn't carry over to them.

BigRobSA said:

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Dan Scott said:

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You can go to every counties appraisal district website and lookup anybody's address. You can hide it through a process but why is that not the default? There are hundreds of data broker websites with all your info, family info, past residences, emails, cars. And it's not 100% accurate.

In this modern world where almost everything is online, there are always data breaches. What safeguards are in place for people?

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It's the government and, as such, is always on the up-and-up and completely effective and efficient, Mofo!

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What is public information and what is private. An appraisal is paid for by the taxpayer and is therefore public information.

I think the core of the problem in the U.S. is who owns that data. We don't see that as private information here but rather as a product to be sold by the entity that collected it. We've all heard the saying "if you aren't paying, you're the product" well this is what it means. Facebook, Google, your local CAD/Tax office, the Secretary of State, etc. They all have databases they've accumulated with information about us and in the U.S. that information is theirs and is extremely valuable as a marketing resource.

Go back to my post earlier in the thread. With a VA mortgage you are eligible to refi after seven months from closing. Guess when I got my first flyers telling about the great news rates and that I could save two months of payments and get my escrow balance back? The middle of month 8. Who got paid for that info? My original mortgage company still owns the mortgage so I assume they didn't sell my info. The title company? My realtor or the brokerage? Why is that sellable information? Whoever sold it sold the new address, my name, that it's a VA mortgage and my cell number all tied together in one nice little "Go annoy the **** out of LOYAL AG!" package. I didn't authorize that but they own the information from that transaction, not me. That seems like a problem.

Then if you read the "who can we sell your information to" notices you occasionally get you find out that you can't exclude much of anyone because they reserve the right to sell it to all kinds of "affiliates".

Y'all know me. I hate government. Red. Blue. Doesn't matter, it's all worthless to me. But if some politician popped up with a good plan to reign this **** in I'd have to listen.

They don't care is the reason. They're lazy and going through any kind of change in the system is unthinkable to them. When I was a police officer I got that taken of the county tax roll through a process. It was even more of a process to be taken off the county voter roll to be seen publicly. They don't make it easy for you because any request you do is just more work for them.

lb3 said:

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So long as we pay property taxes all our property info needs to be publicly accessible otherwise we would never have any basis for appealing unlike appraisals.

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The owners name should be hidden.

New York just instituted a new law requiring retailers to post a sign saying they used personalized data to determine YOUR individual price. Pretty sure it passed but the business lobbying against it was intense.

TXTransplant said:

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YouBet said:

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I've always wondered about the CAD data being public as well. Your name just out there for the world to see unless you have it in a trust or some other vehicle. It seems like you could at least do some level of masking the owners while still making the rest of the data public.

Yet, they will hide some of the exemptions for "privacy reasons". But not your name! lol.

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Some CADs, (HCAD being one of them) allow you to change your name to "current owner". I've done that for my property. HCAD's process is as easy as filling out a form, but I don't think all counties are the same. I knew someone in Montgomery County who tried to get theirs changed, and the CAD wanted a "reason" (ie, were they a public official or was there a court issued restraining order).

Problem is, my CAD account is current owner, but all four of the tax entities that I pay have my name associated with the address on those online accounts, all of which are searchable by address. Current owner doesn't carry over to them.

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Is it for privacy? Because your deed is public too. I can search anyone's address and find the owner. Or search anyone's name and find their address.

https://www.cclerk.hctx.net/applications/websearch/RP.aspx

Over_ed said:

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New York just instituted a new law requiring retailers to post a sign saying they used personalized data to determine YOUR individual price. Pretty sure it passed but the business lobbying against it was intense.

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That feels potentially discriminatory. I'm struggling to find a reason Wal Mart would need to charge me one price and the black guy behind me in line more or less. Some places do this for services like hair cuts for men vs women but retail? What am I not considering?

You and me. This will come with the evaporation of price tags as they now work.

In the best case, expect no discrimination, except time of day. Uber kind of pricing, based on time of day demand.

Middle ground - loyalty shopping on steroids. The more you buy, the cheaper. I'm not sure how that works to retailers advantage, tbh. It seems they would want other shoppers to see how much they could save, but I guess it could upset a lot of shoppers. Probably have extensive tie-ins with other retailers.

Worst case, probably income-based The more you make, the more you can afford. Some retailers/service providers already charge customers more if they have an apple device. And zipcode etc. also allows this.

But they will have to be very careful as it would be easy to be seen as discriminating against "protected classes". So expect most on Texags to pay more. For joy.

Again, the less information out there on you, the better off you are.

ETA - spelling

Martin Q. Blank said:

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TXTransplant said:

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YouBet said:

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I've always wondered about the CAD data being public as well. Your name just out there for the world to see unless you have it in a trust or some other vehicle. It seems like you could at least do some level of masking the owners while still making the rest of the data public.

Yet, they will hide some of the exemptions for "privacy reasons". But not your name! lol.

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Some CADs, (HCAD being one of them) allow you to change your name to "current owner". I've done that for my property. HCAD's process is as easy as filling out a form, but I don't think all counties are the same. I knew someone in Montgomery County who tried to get theirs changed, and the CAD wanted a "reason" (ie, were they a public official or was there a court issued restraining order).

Problem is, my CAD account is current owner, but all four of the tax entities that I pay have my name associated with the address on those online accounts, all of which are searchable by address. Current owner doesn't carry over to them.

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Is it for privacy? Because your deed is public too. I can search anyone's address and find the owner. Or search anyone's name and find their address.

https://www.cclerk.hctx.net/applications/websearch/RP.aspx

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Is what for privacy? Did I change it for that reason - yeah, but at the time, I didn't give any thought to my name being on the tax office websites. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have wasted my time with it.

However, you can't search the Harris County Clerk website by address...you have to search by name or subdivision/lot/block. So there is a level of "privacy" there. My deed does not actually have my address on it. It only has the subdivision, lot, and block. Granted, someone could figure out my address from that info, but it's not explicitly on the county clerk website.

And as you noted, anyone can google my name and get my address, or Google my address and get my name. Changing it at HCAD really didn't do much of anything.

LOYAL AG said:

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Over_ed said:

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New York just instituted a new law requiring retailers to post a sign saying they used personalized data to determine YOUR individual price. Pretty sure it passed but the business lobbying against it was intense.

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That feels potentially discriminatory. I'm struggling to find a reason Wal Mart would need to charge me one price and the black guy behind me in line more or less. Some places do this for services like hair cuts for men vs women but retail? What am I not considering?

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I'm sure Wal-Mart wants to do it because Amazon does. Amazon uses some form of "dynamic" pricing. I routinely order consumables that are a different price every time I purchase them. And this isn't because they are "on sale". The price just changes. I assume Amazon is monitoring what I am ordering as well as how popular the item is and adjusting price accordingly.

When I notice a significant price difference, I just go buy the item elsewhere that has a better price/keeps they price consistent.