CHENANGO COUNTY – A resolution that would allow the Chenango County Department of Social Services to purchase software capable of gathering information from applicants’ public online accounts, including social media, failed to pass at a county Board of Supervisors meeting this week because of questionable ethical conflicts.

The resolution would allow Chenango County DSS to enter a licensing agreement with the tech company LexisNexis, a provider of legal, government, business and high-tech information software. The program, named Accurint, would assist various departments of DSS in the evaluation of assets and liabilities of clients by searching online public record information, including criminal databases, real property tax records, and DMV records. Moreover, it could be used to conduct background checks of potential DSS employees through the same process.

According to DSS Commissioner Bette Osborne, the software would be a valuable tool because it’s capable of doing what the department currently lacks the time and manpower of doing. It would help detect welfare fraud and determine eligibility of public assistance recipients; and could also be used to prevent the department from hiring a bad employee, she said.

“We don’t have time to look at everything,” she added, explaining that the program helps to “narrow down” the search to detect problems.

Osborne brought the licensing proposal before the county Health and Human Services Committee earlier this month, specifically noting that the program contains different levels of access that would restrict use to only a few select individuals and can monitor keystrokes, which she said would prevent DSS employees from conducting inappropriate searches.

But the software was contested by some county officials. Although it comes with a price tag - roughly $10,560 per year for 8 licenses - more concern was centered on use and capability of the program at the monthly meeting of the county Board of Supervisors on Monday.

Some legislators argued the program would be a useful tool in protecting tax dollars from misuse, but others maintained that a search of online sources such as Craigslist, Twitter and Facebook - even if it was to determine if a client is selling their benefits on the internet - is crossing the line.

Chenango County Attorney Allan Gordon clarified at the meeting that software programs such as Accurint are only allowed to look at information on social media sites that account users make public. Users who have accounts with privacy settings would be off-limits without legal action.