Jon Burton Managing Director, State Government Affairs
Elsevier LexisNexis Legal & Professional LexisNexis Risk Solutions Reed Business Information Reed Exhibitions
March 2, 2018
The Honorable Daniel J. Fox, Chairman The Honorable Michael McLachlan, Chairman The Honorable Mae Flexer, Chairwoman The Honorable Laura Devlin, Ranking Member Joint Committee on Government Administration and Elections Legislative Office Bldg #2200 Hartford, CT 06106
RE: Opposition to HB 5261
Dear distinguished members of the Government Administration and Elections Committee:
On behalf of LexisNexis, I am writing to voice our opposition to HB 5261, specifically provisions in Section 1 of the bill that create a new category of “commercial purpose” as it relates to public records access and fees in Connecticut.
By way of background, RELX and its division of LexisNexis is recognized as a leading provider of authoritative legal, public records, and business information. LexisNexis plays a vital role in supporting government, law enforcement and business customers who use our information services for important uses including: detecting and preventing identity theft and fraud, locating suspects, finding missing children, and preventing and investigating criminal and terrorist activities.
Open access to public records serves a valuable purpose in our democracy and provides numerous public benefits. We see this legislation as counter to the principles of public access to public records. Ultimately, the creation of a new category of public records used for “commercial purpose” will be costly to Connecticut consumers, government, businesses, and law enforcement, and could also result in negative societal impacts as well. For the reasons discussed herein, we respectfully oppose House Bill 5261.
Public Record Uses By Law Enforcement
Public records are a key source of information concerning citizen’s addresses. This information is used to locate missing family members, owners of lost or stolen property, to identify and locate suspects and witnesses in criminal and civil matters, tax evaders, and parents who are delinquent in child support payments. Law enforcement relies significantly on public record information. In 1998, the FBI alone made more than 53,000 inquiries to commercial online databases to obtain a wide variety of “public source information.” Former FBI Director, Louis Freeh, indicated these inquiries assisted in the arrest of 393
1000 Alderman Drive, Alpharetta, GA 30005 Telephone: 678.694.3383 Email: [email protected]
Jon Burton Managing Director, State Government Affairs
Elsevier LexisNexis Legal & Professional LexisNexis Risk Solutions Reed Business Information Reed Exhibitions
H. 5261, Page Two
fugitives, the identification of more than $37 million in seizable assets, the locating of 1,966 individuals 1 wanted by law enforcement and the locating of 3,209 witnesses wanted for questioning.
Public Record Uses For Financial Decision-making
Public records are also used to determine a consumer’s financial fitness in a variety of ways that benefit the public. Public records facilitate in the recovery of debt by creditors and also provide valuable notice to future creditors. Information in the public record space is also used to identify outstanding liens, determine property ownership and its value, and to verify loan application information. Public record information helps increase the accuracy of future credit decisions, increases the availability of credit, and 2 decreases the cost of credit to the public.
Accessible public records further facilitate rapid financial decision-making. Major financial decisions are often made in a matter of minutes or hours, instead of weeks or months, as is the case in most other countries. In 1997, 82 percent of automobile loan applicants received a decision within an hour; 48 percent of applicants received a decision within 30 minutes. Many retailers open new charge accounts for customers at the point of sale in less than two minutes. This is unheard of outside of the United States in 3 countries that do not share our commitment to open public records.
Finally, it is important to note that this country’s open public record system significantly reduces the cost of credit by facilitating accurate decision-making, reducing fraud and other losses, and improving efficiency and confidence. As a result, American consumers save billions of dollars every year. In fact, economist Walter Kitchenman has calculated that just one of these features of our open information economy - the extent to which reliable, centralized, and standardized consumer credit information makes it possible to pool consumer loans and then sell them to investors—saves American consumers at least 4 $80 billion a year.
1 Hearings before the Subcomm. for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary and Related Agencies of the Comm. on Appropriations, U.S. Senate, March 24, 1999 (statement of Louis J. Freeh).
2 “Consumer Benefits from Open Public Records,” Coalition for Sensible Public Records Access (CSPRA), www.cspra.org.
3 Ibid. 4 Walter F. Kitchenman, U.S. Credit Reporting: Perceived Benefits Outweigh Privacy Concerns 1 (The Tower Group 1999).
1000 Alderman Drive, Alpharetta, GA 30005 Telephone: 678.694.3383 Email: [email protected]
Jon Burton Managing Director, State Government Affairs
Elsevier LexisNexis Legal & Professional LexisNexis Risk Solutions Reed Business Information Reed Exhibitions
H. 5261, Page Three
Public Records and “Commercial Purpose”
With the benefits of public access to public records having been outlined, it is important to note that virtually all of these valuable uses of public records depend in large part on commercial users and resellers of public record data. Commercial intermediaries, including LexisNexis, collect records from disparate sources and make them available conveniently, reliably and at low cost.
Additionally, HB 5261 would create a significant new barrier to public access of public records. This new barrier comes in the form of an undetermined and open-ended “reasonable” fee for access to public records.
This fee would be borne by Connecticut consumers, businesses, governments and law enforcement alike. For businesses that rely on intermediaries like LexisNexis to make their record requests frequently or in a high volume, this new charge will ultimately be levied on all Connecticut taxpayers in that consumers may incur higher fees for those services. With that in mind, the additional costs will have both financial and societal impact on citizens throughout Connecticut. Public records are already stored and maintained at taxpayers’ expense and should not be subject to multiple fees. Simply put, enactment of HB 5261 would make Connecticut a more expensive place to do business.
In closing, for all of the reasons discussed herein, we strongly encourage the Joint Committee to not pass H 5261.
Sincerely,
Jon Burton, Managing Director State Government Affairs
1000 Alderman Drive, Alpharetta, GA 30005 Telephone: 678.694.3383 Email: [email protected]