Administrative Law Commons^™

Regulation By Database, Nathan Cortez

University of Colorado Law Review

The federal government currently publishes 196,284 searchable databases online, a number of which include information about private parties that is negative or unflattering in some way. Federal agencies increasingly publish adverse data not just to inform the public or promote transparency, but to pursue regulatory ends-to change the underlying behavior being reported. Such "regulation by database" has become a preferred method of regulation in recent years, despite scant attention from policymakers, courts, or scholars on its appropriate uses and safeguards.

This Article evaluates the aspirations and burdens of regulation by database. Based on case studies of six important data sets …