Steve, all you have to do is make the FOIA requests I suggested. You will likely find the Counties Red Vision has recently bought. You will also learn how little they paid.

Fort Bend County, Texas for example sold 22 million records to Red Vision for $2000. Less than half what you are paying as an annual fee. See Courthouse For Sale - Cheap

Once the records are bought in bulk they become the property of  the purchaser and they can and do sell them to anyone , including foreign agencies.Not all companies indicate where they get the records but if they claim they are public records, you can rest assured they bought them or downloaded them from the county sites.

Another source for bulk release is the technology vendors who contract with the counties to image and publish the records online. Take a look at the copyrites and disclaimers on the county sites to see who really owns the records. Foreign companies have been quick to gain control over the records this way. In Federal Judge Orders County Imaging Software Destroyed we found the programmers back door that allowed access to the records via the Internet. In addition, we found the India based company was giving away the software to insurance companies suggesting it was a good way to "secure" prohibited medical information and social security numbers.


Virginia has tried to protect the records and I commend them for their efforts, but they have been no match for the companies that traffic in the records.

Subscription sites offer little protection from identity theives Steve. Choicepoint was a subscription site with some of the most secure technology available to them. They weren't hacked, they were easily scammed by a Nigerian identity theft ring. The ring simply stole the identity of 50 Americans and used the stolen identities to open accountes with the subscription service. At last count, 250,000 identities were stolen.