[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

Who may have told you that? Someone who didn't want other people to do title searches? Unfortunately, that is the most common reason.

The '96 Privacy Act did indeed crack down on the distribution of information from government agencies, however, the Freedom of Info act also factors in. So, the only real change for those states that historically allowed this info to be disclosed was that the requestor had to disclose his/her purpose for the info request. Some states (like PA) require the form to be notorized, other states will process it without, and other states were already so restrictive in their info disclosure that the act only supported their initial position. Some states will black out the names/address of the owners, and/or cut off any financial info, but they did this before the Privacy Act as well. Each state also has it's individual Records Retention Policy too, so if the info is older than 10yrs for eg; they archive it, and may claim that it's 'unavailable'. Another type of search will sometimes get you into the archives, or sometimes if the gov. worker is have a good day they will do it automatically. The Privacy Act didn't change this aspect either.

So, in short, the Privacy Act added some more steps to the process, but it does not really restrict the info any more than before.