Information About Government Public Records

By Claire Dowell


The earliest organized societies and ancient civilizations have established means of archiving events, quarrels, scientific discoveries, and taxation policies. Examples of these deeds can be found among the ruins of ancient Babylonian, Aztec, and Egyptian structures and artifacts. Such activities have been passed on from generation to generation, and have helped establish our identities as a people and the world as we know it.

Public records are pieces of information, proceedings, files, accounts, or other records which a government must maintain, protect, and update. Described as "public", these records must be available for public access, procurement and scrutiny. Public records include vital events such as births, deaths, marriages. Furthermore, documentations of most legal actions, voter registration files, criminal records, and government spending reports also fall into this list of records made available to the grasp of the general public.

It is important to remember that public records serve a variety of purposes. This premise is one of the main reasons why such recordings are made available to the public. For example, marriage licenses formally legalize a celebrated union between husband and wife, divorce records officially terminate a dysfunctional marriage after the approval of a judge in a Court of Law, and arrest records are vital requirements in background checking for employees in most companies around the world to ensure that quality assurance standards are maintained, and future risks are mitigated. Moreover, making reports of government activities are made public for accountability and transparency. Aside from its many legal implications, public registers are also important in interpreting, studying and establishing statistical, socioeconomic, and demographic trends in a jurisdiction. Without knowing the things that shaped our world and us as individuals, we would have a lesser sense of identity.

Public records in the United States are directed according to the Freedom of Information Act. Observing this action, regulations regarding the access and procurement of public records vary from state to state. There are some states that impose strict policies with their public records and there are territories that are less uptight in the procurement of the public records from their cache.

Included in the diverse legislations that surround the distribution, maintenance and protection of public records are the institutions tapped by the State Government as the primary repository for public registers. Approaches are either centralized or decentralized, on a state or county level. The usual repositories tapped by State Governments are State Departments of Health, Justice and Public Safety on a state level, and Offices of the District Clerk, Local Courthouses, and Sheriff's Offices on a county level.

It is a basic part of the human condition to be in constant pursuit of things that will make life more convenient. This principle has taken form into the Internet in the 21st century. The power of the World Wide Web can now be harnessed to gain access to and procure almost all commodities and services known to man, including public records. Government entities and independent service providers now offer the public the power and the liberty to perform public record search towards a person they are pursuing. Records search via the Internet has become one of the most popular topics subject to search and retrieval efforts, because it can save one heaps of time, money, and exertion.




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