New Rules for Accessing Government Data Online

You might care about this because FederalRegister.gov and eCFR.gov have updated how you can access their websites. These changes are in response to a lot of automated programs, or bots, trying to scrape data from their sites. To keep the websites running smoothly, direct programmatic access is now limited. If you are a developer or a program trying to get data automatically, you will need to use their developer APIs. These are special tools designed for programs to interact with the data in a controlled way. If you are a human user and see a "Request Access" page, it means the system might have thought you were a bot. You will just need to complete a simple test, called a CAPTCHA, to prove you are human. This is a normal part of their security steps to make sure real people can use the sites without problems. What is particularly interesting about this is how government agencies are adapting to modern challenges like aggressive web scraping. By moving programmatic data access to APIs, the Federal Register is creating a more structured and efficient way for developers and researchers to get the information they need. This approach protects the main websites from being overwhelmed or slowed down by automated requests. It also helps maintain data integrity and availability for everyone. It signals a shift towards providing public data through dedicated, developer-friendly interfaces while adding a layer of security to filter out unwanted automated traffic from the primary user interface. This helps balance the need for open government data with the practicalities of website management. This document would be most interesting to a few key groups. Software developers, data scientists, and researchers who build applications or conduct studies using government data from FederalRegister.gov or eCFR.gov will find this very relevant. They will need to understand the new API requirements for their tools. Also, anyone who frequently accesses these government websites and might encounter the CAPTCHA challenge will want to know why it is there and how to proceed. Government transparency advocates and those interested in how public information is disseminated online might also find these access policies noteworthy. Essentially, if you use, build for, or rely on federal regulatory information, these changes affect you.