Website With Searchable Addresses Showing Owner's Names

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#3034602 10-Feb-2023 14:43

nickb800:

I agree the website should do a better job explaining it's limitations, but I don't think the limitations are a reason for it to be taken down.

So despite it not being able to cope with common ownership structures, distinguish between people with the same names and revealing more than what it needs to do in order to actually fulfil the purpose that it supposedly exists to serve, let alone effectively and diminishes privacy to anyone clumsily caught out by these flaws doesn't warrant some sort of intervention isn't a good enough reason for it to at the very least get shuttered until it can actually do any of those things correctly?

Well... if I can't convince you at this point then I probably won't be able to.

sir1963

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#3034609 10-Feb-2023 14:52

nickb800:

[I don't follow the logic of your concern. If you are John Doe, and someone unsavory has a run in with another John Doe and follows them home, then wouldn't the unsavory person just (for example) punch the other John Doe on their doorstep right there and then? I don't see why they would then go around confronting John's landlord and/or tenants at other addresses?

Even if someone unsavory wanted to assault landlords for just being landlords and had been incited by this website - what are they going to do? Even when this website is doing what it claims to do, it doesn't tell you where a landlord lives, just what properties they own.

I just can't see how this information appreciably raises your personal safety risk above baseline levels. Even if you share a name with a prominent gang member, the White Pages presents the same sort of risk as this website for enabling a 'hit'.

I agree the website should do a better job explaining it's limitations, but I don't think the limitations are a reason for it to be taken down.

--

On a technical note - it appears the developers have connected LINZ's titles (which have owners connected) to LINZ Parcels, and LINZ Parcels to LINZ addresses. This is necessary to enable a street address search, as titles and parcels are not identified by address. LINZ's address database is a recent effort, and I suspect this accounts for some of the errors that users have identified (beyond common names, cross leases and unit titles). Old properties may have the wrong address mapped to their parcel. Properties on corner sections could be given an address on both streets.

If it addresses all of a property owners addresses, there is a reasonable expectation they will probably being living in one of them, so by education yes they ARE giving out the landlords address.

You obviously have not seen the rabid posts by some people, ie all landlords should be killed and the properties given to the tenants for free.

In this day and age of QAnon, Anti-vaxers, the conspiracy nuts, etc, yes the risks are substantially raised.

mattwnz

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#3034616 10-Feb-2023 14:57

I was playing around with this last night when it was still showing single property owners. It was useful as I had forgotten my neighbours names. If this data is on the LINZ website, how do you access it, it all seems to be behind logins, and haven't seen any forms showing how to signup. At the very least it isn't easy to access from what I can see.

It is ironic because when I requested a property file from my local council, they wouldn't provide it to me under all the owners names had been redacted from the documents due to privacy, even though I already knew the owners names.

sir1963

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#3034622 10-Feb-2023 15:02

mattwnz:

I was playing around with this last night when it was still showing single property owners. It was useful as I had forgotten my neighbours names. If this data is on the LINZ website, how do you access it, it all seems to be behind logins, and haven't seen any forms showing how to signup. At the very least it isn't easy to access from what I can see.

It is ironic because when I requested a property file from my local council, they wouldn't provide it to me under all the owners names had been redacted from the documents due to privacy, even though I already knew the owners names.

And therein lies one of the issues, there is no record of WHO is getting the information

wellygary

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#3034624 10-Feb-2023 15:04

mattwnz:

I was playing around with this last night when it was still showing single property owners. It was useful as I had forgotten my neighbours names. If this data is on the LINZ website, how do you access it, it all seems to be behind logins, and haven't seen any forms showing how to signup. At the very least it isn't easy to access from what I can see.

It is ironic because when I requested a property file from my local council, they wouldn't provide it to me under all the owners names had been redacted from the documents due to privacy, even though I already knew the owners names.

Many councils have searchable rates registers, or equivalent property maps, most will also spit out the registered owners,

Here's Queenstown's

https://qldc-web.t1cloud.com/T1PRDefault/WebApps/eProperty/P1/eRates/RatingInformationSearch.aspx?r=QLDC.WEB.GUEST&f=P1.ERA.RATINFO.ENQ

Dunedin etc

https://www.dunedin.govt.nz/do-it-online/search/rates

nickb800

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#3034627 10-Feb-2023 15:07

sir1963:

nickb800:

[I don't follow the logic of your concern. If you are John Doe, and someone unsavory has a run in with another John Doe and follows them home, then wouldn't the unsavory person just (for example) punch the other John Doe on their doorstep right there and then? I don't see why they would then go around confronting John's landlord and/or tenants at other addresses?

Even if someone unsavory wanted to assault landlords for just being landlords and had been incited by this website - what are they going to do? Even when this website is doing what it claims to do, it doesn't tell you where a landlord lives, just what properties they own.

I just can't see how this information appreciably raises your personal safety risk above baseline levels. Even if you share a name with a prominent gang member, the White Pages presents the same sort of risk as this website for enabling a 'hit'.

I agree the website should do a better job explaining it's limitations, but I don't think the limitations are a reason for it to be taken down.

--

On a technical note - it appears the developers have connected LINZ's titles (which have owners connected) to LINZ Parcels, and LINZ Parcels to LINZ addresses. This is necessary to enable a street address search, as titles and parcels are not identified by address. LINZ's address database is a recent effort, and I suspect this accounts for some of the errors that users have identified (beyond common names, cross leases and unit titles). Old properties may have the wrong address mapped to their parcel. Properties on corner sections could be given an address on both streets.

If it addresses all of a property owners addresses, there is a reasonable expectation they will probably being living in one of them, so by education yes they ARE giving out the landlords address.

You obviously have not seen the rabid posts by some people, ie all landlords should be killed and the properties given to the tenants for free.

In this day and age of QAnon, Anti-vaxers, the conspiracy nuts, etc, yes the risks are substantially raised.

I believe you that those sorts of people are out there.

If someone was that way inclined, would it not be more efficient to go chose a random house on Tamaki Drive (or similar 'wealthy street') instead of traipsing around ten properties in a city to find the landlord? Like I get that this is an unhinged person scenario, but it seems like this website is an inefficient tool for that scenario, and you'd hope the cops would catch up before house #10.

You can search any company in NZ in the Companies Office register and find the director's home address. That's way more accurate than this tool (as it's actually their primary address, not some random rental property they own). That's been around for a long time and probably presents a higher risk than this

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nickb800

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#3034629 10-Feb-2023 15:10

wellygary:

Many councils have searchable rates registers, or equivalent property maps, most will also spit out the registered owners,

On the Queenstown-Lakes District Council website, you can instantly download the building file of any property in the district, so you can get the full floor plans for anyone's house. Probably the same with some other councils.

alasta

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#3034634 10-Feb-2023 15:26

nickb800:

You can search any company in NZ in the Companies Office register and find the director's home address. That's way more accurate than this tool (as it's actually their primary address, not some random rental property they own). That's been around for a long time and probably presents a higher risk than this

Brook Van Velden has been campaigning for directors' addresses to be withheld due to the alarming rate at which violent and anti-social behaviour is increasing within society generally.

Silvrav

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#3034638 10-Feb-2023 15:36

Just mailed them to remove my name for privacy matters and got a reply 5mins later from a Kat to state its done

mattwnz

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#3034653 10-Feb-2023 16:09

Councils around me redact ownership info from the online rates lookup due to privacy.. Doesn't seem there are any universal standards for councils but don't get me started on councils. I see the NZ domain registry also now make contact information private on domains registered in peoples names. IMO in this day and age this info should be private unless you provide your details with a login. When I got property info from the council I had to give my details so they had a record. I am guessing with LINZ, they keep logs linked to the login so they can see who is looking things up.

mattwnz

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#3034657 10-Feb-2023 16:13

nickb800:

wellygary:

Many councils have searchable rates registers, or equivalent property maps, most will also spit out the registered owners,

On the Queenstown-Lakes District Council website, you can instantly download the building file of any property in the district, so you can get the full floor plans for anyone's house. Probably the same with some other councils.

Maybe with some but I haven't come across one that does that. Although some do allow you do access the info via terminals in the council offices but you are supposed to enter your contact details for the log. Others will charge you a fee, such as $20 to send you the PDF of the property packet if they have it scanned in. Otherwise you have to go into the offices and view it.

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tchart

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#3034733 10-Feb-2023 17:56

Late to the party.

While the spirit of the website is a bit rubbish as several people have pointed out the information is public record and freely available from LINZ. There are several ways to get the data from LINZ without scraping etc.

If you want the owner information you do have to agree to additional terms and be approved manually by LINZ. In saying that I believe the only constraint on usage is to not use for targeted advertising etc. so I don’t believe the license terms are violated in this instance.

The legitimate uses of the data for businesses eg forestry, agriculture etc notifying neighbours are immense.

BTW there I believe you can request your data not be made public in that dataset (similar to the NZTA) but I don’t think many people do that. I’ve not done it myself so I don’t know if there are requirements to do this eg be rich and famous.

Handle9

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#3034735 10-Feb-2023 18:03

sir1963:
mattwnz:

I was playing around with this last night when it was still showing single property owners. It was useful as I had forgotten my neighbours names. If this data is on the LINZ website, how do you access it, it all seems to be behind logins, and haven't seen any forms showing how to signup. At the very least it isn't easy to access from what I can see.

It is ironic because when I requested a property file from my local council, they wouldn't provide it to me under all the owners names had been redacted from the documents due to privacy, even though I already knew the owners names.

And therein lies one of the issues, there is no record of WHO is getting the information

That’s the nice thing about publicly available information. There doesn’t need to be a record.