NSW Residents Website - legitimate site and what for? (Also all other states)

Does anyone know what this website is about?? NSW Residents](https://www.nswresidents.com/

Gives no info but lists a lot of peoples names and addresses. If go to about Tab tells you even less, but to email contact@neighbourhoods.me if you want your details removed… what and give them an email address to go with your contact details???

There is websites for each Australian State too. Be interested to know more, but have been unable to find out anywhere…

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It looks to be a web site in progress. A test on a single person I know in NSW was non-functional.

My best guess - it is an entrepreneurial spirit who thinks they are going to emulate the myriad similar web sites from the USA. Enter a name and get teaser info. Want everything from the public records and whatever they can hoover up and pay a fee.

If I am correct it is yet one more devaluation and monetisation of our internet, such as it is.

The Privacy Commissioner may be interested but whether they take reports before an overstep (if I am correct) is unknown.

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It looks like it’s trying to be another white pages.

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If as others suggest it appears to be a directory of some sort it is a poor product compared to the white or yellow pages etc.

It’s search tool is not very effective.
Have a friend Jane Smith who lives in Randwick?
“Smith J” returns one set of results for entries with just a J?
“Smith Jane” returns a set with Jane only?
How to restrict a search for Jane Smith to a particular locality is not readily apparent.

As the site is an unknown how it permits others to access and use the data held is uncertain.
IE a significant risk if it is built on any creditable volume of real name address and contact details.
A scammers and business gold mine if they can identify by a simple query the resident, email and mobile attached to a particular street address. Access the web service might offer to select customers.

True, the details offered are also held with customer records of businesses and government. At least we know who they are and they have privacy under takings not to share these publicly. This other site the topic introduced if not with bad intent falls well short of it’s competition. I’d ignore it. I avoided searching it for my name or details for the obvious. IE it may be using details searched on to add to or pad the data base.

The big big warning sign here is there is zero offered by the site as to it’s ownership etc.

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I contacted Office of Australia Information Commission and have followed up several times, still waiting on a response. Have also contacted other NSW and Federal Privacy Departments, even contacted my local MP wasn’t much help either.

I find this site very concerning, peoples data being exposed, nothing advising what it is for.
In relation to having your data removed from a possible dodgy website, we are told we have to first contact the website provider and ask them to remove it, I ask, why do members of the public have to contact website owners and ask for their data to be removed when members of the public cannot be sure the website is legitimate? You could be just confirming more data for a possible dodgy website!

These sort of sights and laws around having your data removed needs to change

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The information are name, addresses and phone number…which are already widely available online such as through WhitePages. I haven’t checked, but it is possible that the site uses the whitepages dataset with listed entries the same as on WhitePages. The data does look similar to WhitePages which suggests it may be the case.

The dataset is also limited, as seen by https://www.nswresidents.com/people.

It might someone protecting their domain registration by creating an example database hoping to make money by onselling it in the future. If @PhilT suggests is correct, it is a high possibility.

There are also many other non-WhitePage websites where one can check numbers or obtain similar details…through a reverse search function. These have complete listings rather than sample like that on the website in question. If the Privacy Commissioner rules that the information oversteps the mark, it may have ramifications for publicly available listings through WhitePages or other websites.

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If you were a woman fleeing domestic violence, you probably wouldn’t want to be listed.

If the sole source is the WhitePages then that is probably taken care of (and I believe the WhitePages no longer even scam you by making you pay not to be in the WhitePages). However if this site will be aggregating from a variety of Big Data sources, they might unknowingly list the woman in question.

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information freely available on white pages

yes but you can ask to have your details removed from the known site your example white pages by requesting it from a known email address and legitimate website… not from an apple alias email address where you dont know what/why your data is being held for. Why email an alias address to give more data for that site to collect??

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You could email them from a temporary free email address i.e. a burner address.

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The same applies to all the other reverse type search websites. If the number was once listed, it is traceable/trackable online.

If one wants some level of anonymity, when they move into a new house/location don’t get a landline phone or if you do don’t get it listed. Same applies to mobiles. And never give out you phone address and phone number to the same place (which is near impossible).

There used to be websites that had WhitePages datasets…we used them for work trying to find phone numbers for the residents (addresses) where other sources produced blanks. The datasets became out-of-date and usefulness diminished significantly. They were replaced with the fee for search, reverse search websites.

Yes, but legacy copies will exist for some time until the datasets are replaced with updated versions (unless Sensis/WhitePages allows every website using phone numbers/addresses to have live access to their database - I don’t think this is likely for every website as the WhitePages datasets are the businesses value). As often said, once the data is on the internet it is effectively there for ever.

It possibly raises a bigger issue of how one can manage data on the internet which is publicly or was once publicly available, and now no longer wants the information available. This is where this and many websites (including social media or one which has used in the past) sit as their is a lot of data dispersed over the internet and held knowingly/unknowingly by business.

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Yes, the assumption is that in this scenario the woman gets a new number and gets it marked as “unlisted” (so it simply won’t be in the WhitePages or anything derived therefrom).

The risk is that, in aggregating data from a variety of Big Data sources, this web site unknowingly does the hard work for the abuser.

As you say, it is very difficult to control what information you give out and where it ends up and who can access it. If you never give out your phone number then there isn’t much point having the phone (hence problem solved :wink:).

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This is worrying. As an Optus customer and knowing my details could be compromised gives me cause for concern.

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I would say it is purely there for the advertising revenue. The data is way out of date and appears to be White Pages listings.

I checked some listings. Cousin who died in a nursing home in 2009 still has her home number and address. Our listing (we connected 8 years ago) isn’t there, but our previous address is, and the detail suggests it is at least 2008, but not after 2014. And others. No mobiles. So I put it at 14-15 years old, white pages listings.

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“I would say it is purely there for the advertising revenue. The data is way out of date and appears to be White Pages listings.”

And if this is the case and the data is real previous addresses of people, how helpful is that for people trying to obtain finance and indentification for fraud/criminal purposes???

Isn’t that also concerning this website exists and no one knows who owns in and why it is published?

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In my area we have a residents website ‘your Bangor neighbour’ which I find useless so have tried quite a few times to unsubscribe without success. Very frustrating as I continue to get emails from the site.

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If that’s the case it can’t be any worse that the White Pages which have what must be the worst search engine in existence.

The site is registered in New York. All registrant details are listed as “redacted”. Hosted on Cloudflare.

A cursory check of the data suggests that they’ve scraped it from somewhere, probably the white pages as noted by other posters. Where ever they got it from, they don’t have much. As a test, I looked up someone who died last year, and the details were correct, but out of date. The house has been sold since. The Victorian version has what looks like a small amount of real data for a handful of outer Melbourne suburbs and some regional centres. Secondhand data. Pretty basic interface.

Good luck enforcing privacy rights in the event of a breach. They could live anywhere.

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