Smile! You’re on PortlandMaps

I noted the possibility of this a little over a year ago, and now it has come to pass, albeit quietly.

As of September 17, 2007, the names of homeowners in the Portland metro area are now displayed online to users of PortlandMaps.com, the City of Portland’s property information portal.

From the PortlandMaps site:

After many months of research and discussion, within the City and Multnomah County, there was concurrence that based on State Statutes, the property owner names were public records and the property owner names should not be blocked from view on the internet. Once Multnomah County, the custodians of property records, authorized the City to display names, the City made the decision to make the names available on the internet through PortlandMaps.com.

To view the owner information, you need to search an address, then look under the Assessor link. As a compromise to privacy and safety concerns, users cannot search by owner’s name.

The city rationalizes that the information is public (and has been available by telephone or visit to the county office) and that it is a common practice in other jurisdictions (although I haven’t seen it available anywhere else in the Portland area).

Making taxpayer information readily available online isn’t a surprising move, but nothing in the About statement mentions displaying data from anything outside the City of Portland.

Nevertheless, it appears that Washington and Clackamas counties are also feeding owner information to PortlandMaps. I was a little surprised to see my name pop up since I live in Washington County. (I also need to let the county know my name is not ‘Don’.)

Links:
PortlandMaps.com privacy statement

Technorati Tags: Portland, Oregon, tax, assessor, PortlandMaps.com, real estate

Photo by obo-bobolina, used under Creative Commons license.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

1 comment November 15th, 2007