According to Pew research, 86% of Americans get their news “often or sometimes” via the internet, while 53% consume news from social media. This is problematic and a notable change because people are clearly being manipulated by misinformation on social media.

The rise in misinformation and disinformation represents a concerning problem in our society. Spreading falsehoods undermines critical thinking, challenges our ability to solve problems and reduces confidence in government. It is paramount that government is a trusted entity, and it begins with the integrity of government documents.

Throughout my years in municipal government, I supported sunshine laws to expand the public’s access to government documents. These documents must not only be kept secure, but trusted processes must be in place with audit trails. Unfortunately, I recently discovered extensive accessibility and security vulnerabilities of local government documents that should concern everyone.

Consumers of social media view republished government documents and assume they are trustworthy based on the presence of a government logo, format or file type. However, what if that government document was altered or edited to include falsified information such as revised dollar amounts, altered tax rates, inaccurate policy proposals or provocative images and language meant to incite anger or violence? The stakes are too high to ignore as forged documents would also be a prime vessel to transmit malicious software to constituent households.

Government entities are constantly creating documents. Upon a closer look, those documents can be easily altered and typically lack certification to identify which entity officially published the document. The ability for any random individual, in any country, to download, change and redistribute government documents is real. The USPTO is a recent victim and issued a show cause order on Nov. 3, 2021, to an entity impersonating the USPTO by forging agency documents. This lack of a trusted process allows for corruption. NPR reported in January that members of the Virginia Beach police department forged government DNA documents for interrogations, ultimately submitted to the court as evidence including a signature from a fictitious employee. A trusted process would eliminate internal document forgery and safeguards other processes currently at risk, such as issuing municipal bonds, the sanctity of financial audits and the integrity of public records act requests.

In addition to keeping trust, government must make documents accessible to enable the disabled community to utilize assistive technology to navigate and process government documents. Despite 32 years of ADA law, many government documents are not accessible to persons of multiple disability categories. Noncompliance excludes everyone from participating in government, generating risk and liability to government entities. Intentional acts of inclusion avoid unintentional acts of exclusion.

Local governments will unfortunately neglect the basics by using outdated software rather than current subscription software. Even in the tech savvy Bay Area, government agencies do not invest strategically in technology, which means employees often use antiquated software or management provides only the proper tools to a few. This disparity forces their colleagues to experiment with freeware originating from countries whose governments may not be trustworthy, thereby introducing further risk.

Fortunately, there is a solution. City attorneys and county counsels must step up to eliminate risk by mandating that all documents be secured and follow secure workflows with legal authentication. City and county budgets must allocate resources to an ADA risk manager who would be charged to make certain all staff have updated technology, training and procedures to include audits that bring findings forward to the elected body who must report out to the public. Plausible deniability is not an option when fighting misinformation. If left unresolved, it leads to irreparable distrust of government.

Pierluigi Oliverio is a member of the San Jose Planning Commission and a former San Jose City Councilman.