GPD puts its public records on Web

The image of police records as documents buried in a dusty, cramped storage space in the basement of police headquarters could be at an end in Gainesville.

The Gainesville Police Department unveiled a new Web site Monday that provides access to a range of public records that previously were available only at GPD headquarters.

"It lets the citizens know what crimes are going on, what they might want to look out for," GPD Chief Norman Botsford said. "Better informed citizens make for a better police department."

The Web site is a first for GPD and OSI, the company that developed it, said GPD Lt. Ed Posey, who presented the site Monday to the City Commission. The system is integrated with the department's new records management system, allowing incident reports to be posted online as soon as they are written and put into the system, Posey said.

Public records accessibility has been a topic of discussion on the state level in recent months, after the state Supreme Court placed a temporary moratorium on a system that would have allowed court records to be accessed on the Internet. Concern about privacy rights and the fear of identity theft from information available in those records drove the decision.

While the committee formed by the Supreme Court to study the issue is dealing with different issues than those posed by the GPD Web site, Jon Mills, chairman of the Supreme Court Committee on Privacy and a University of Florida law professor, said there were some common concerns.

"We want to protect innocent people from either being harmed again or from having the privacy invaded," Mills said.

The system will include reports that are available at headquarters broken down into three categories: incident reports, arrest reports and traffic accident reports. Visitors will be able to see arrest reports that have been filed and will be able to view the first page of an incident report, which includes information about the victim, witnesses, address and other information. Traffic reports, which cannot be disclosed to the general public for 60 days because of Florida law, will be available after that period has expired, Posey said.

"Anything the state allows us to release we have on the site," Posey said.

To retrieve the entire report, residents will have to specifically request them from GPD, Posey said.

The site also features a "daily bulletin" that lists significant reports from the previous day. As of Monday, information from a number of reports was available on the bulletin, including the name, age, race and sex of victims and suspects of domestic battery and other crimes.

Botsford said the protocol for posting information to the bulletin, which requires an officer to flag a report as important, and the way the department uses the site generally, was still under development.

"We're breaking new ground," Botsford said. "I'm sure a lot of new issues will come up."

Information about sexual batteries, child abuse and juveniles will not be included on the Web site because state law protects these records, Posey said.

The records will not include some private information such as Social Security numbers, which GPD does not collect, or home phone numbers, Botsford said. Driver's licence numbers will be available as part of traffic incident reports but are already considered a public record, he said.

During Monday's presentation, Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan raised concerns about the implications of the system for victims and the accused. Though the records are available at GPD headquarters, she said the new system made them easier to access.

"For me, there's sort of a big leap between something that you could seek out if you knew it exists" and something posted on the Internet, Hanrahan said.

Jeff Adelson can be reached at (352) 374-5095 or adelsoj@gvillesun.com.