Abstract:
Prisoners registration systems in the United States are government-controlled networks, holding publicrecords that are critical for the safeguard liberty. The current report investigated validity, verification,and security concerns pertaining to the Los Angeles, California, online Inmate Information Center.Hundreds of entries were sampled and about half of the entries were found invalid. In particular cases,access to the arrest and booking records – public records by California law - was requested. Access wasdenied. Neither were invalid records corrected upon request. Therefore, it was concluded that invalidrecords posted online were not the outcome of inadvertent errors. Similar deficiencies were found inthe prisoners registration system of Marin County, California. Solutions are proposed, based onstructured programming and certified, functional logic verification, which must be mandated in suchsystems. Data mining will remain a civic duty – in the US and worldwide - to safeguard human rightsin the digital era