Web Scraping and Public Record Mining

Web Scraping and Public Record Mining

Extracting data from websites and official databases for transparency and accountability.

Overview

Web scraping and public record mining allow activists, journalists, and watchdogs to systematically collect information from websites and online databases. This can include:

• Government filings and budgets
• Court records and legal decisions
• Corporate ownership and contracts
• Environmental impact statements
• News archives or press releases

These techniques help uncover patterns, detect corruption, monitor policy, or build datasets for campaigns and investigations.

How It Works

• Web Scraping: Automated tools or scripts load web pages, extract relevant content (e.g. tables, articles), and store it in structured formats (CSV, JSON).
• APIs: Some public sites offer structured data access — always check before scraping.
• Public Record Mining: Involves navigating search portals, PDFs, spreadsheets, or scanned documents to extract and analyze information.

Common Tools

• Python Libraries:
  • BeautifulSoup – parse and extract data from HTML
  • Scrapy – robust framework for large-scale scraping
  • Requests – make HTTP requests and fetch pages

• No-Code Tools:
  • Octoparse, ParseHub – visual web scraping
  • Google Sheets – with ImportXML or add-ons

• PDF/Data Extraction:
  • Tabula – extract tables from PDFs
  • OCR tools – for scanned or image-based records

• FOIA and Open Data Sites:
  • Data.gov, SEC EDGAR, court portals, budget dashboards, etc.

Use Cases in Activism

• Track police or government spending
• Monitor climate impact reports or emissions data
• Uncover corporate lobbying or donations
• Build public tools (maps, dashboards) for community use
• Audit transparency or compliance in public programs

Best Practices

• Check for Terms of Service or robots.txt restrictions
• Limit scraping frequency to avoid overloading servers
• Document your process for reproducibility
• Use headers or delays to mimic human browsing (avoid bans)

Legal and Ethical Considerations

• Legality:
  • Scraping public data is generally legal — but avoid private, paywalled, or copyrighted content
  • U.S. courts have upheld the legality of scraping public web pages (e.g., hiQ v. LinkedIn)
  • Some countries may criminalize scraping or restrict public record access — check local laws

• Ethics:
  • Don’t scrape personal info or publish private data
  • Respect site limits and don’t interfere with services
  • Clearly label and cite scraped data when publishing

Limitations

• Sites can change structure, breaking scrapers
• Captchas, logins, or JavaScript-heavy sites may block scraping
• Large-scale scraping may require proxies, caching, or headless browsers
• Data cleanup and validation can be time-consuming

Related Tools and Topics

• Open Source Intelligence and Public Data Extraction
• AI Based Summarizers and Text Analysis
• Notification Aggregators and Dashboards

Resources and Further Reading

• https://scrapy.org – Python scraping framework
• https://tabula.technology – PDF table extractor
• DataJournalism Handbook – Scraping and FOIA chapters
• EFF and legal guides on web scraping law

Legal Disclaimer

This content is for informational purposes only. While scraping public websites is often legal, it may still violate terms of service. Avoid collecting private or sensitive information. Always use data ethically, transparently, and in compliance with applicable laws.