To: The Florida State House, The Florida State Senate, and Governor Ron DeSantis

Stop the misuse of public records for profit

I would like to stop the misuse and harassment that goes on with public records. For example someone may be arrested and a company such as cellmates makes a small press release newspaper featuring innocent peoples photgraphs and shares the exact information regarding their arrest. The information is already being provided online for safety in our community but it is unethical and should be illegal for any persons to profit off of the value of county and state public record. This not only affects the innocent people who have the right to a fair trial and have not been proven guilty but also puts a financial bribe into place by stipening a price for the removal of the information from their profitable websites. sometimes old information that has been dismissed even makes way to these for profit websites and innocent people suffer from not being financially capable of meeting the outrageous cost of having a dismissed, dropped or pending charge removed. The public record again is there for safety and many professional staffing companies provide this information to employers privately.

Why is this important?

Many innocent people find themselves being arrested but never actually being charged for committing any crime whatsoever. However there are companies that run press releases and not only defame peiople but profit off of the community. Companies using public records for profit must be stopped with some sort of law and with this petition I know enough people to make it happen.