Genealogical Databases Getting Harder to Access

Mark Baard points to a story running at biomedcentral.com titled "Gain for science is history buffs' loss", summarizing "Privacy laws enacted by Iceland's Parliament in light of DeCode's research now apply to genealogies, restricting who can access information that was once public."

Comments

Makes sense to me.

[MarvinMouse]

Identity fraud is a big ticket business, and while I agree that everyone should be able to track their history, etc online. I know for a fact that credit cards etc usually only ask for birthdates and mother's maiden names as passwords. Even then, If your whole tree, and initimate details of your life are available online for anyone to see. Then you are a prime and easy target for identity fraud.

If you want to be a target, in the name of the "free internet." All power to you. I personally would rather keeping some privacy and security to my life.

Re:Makes sense to me.

[Simon Field]

History buffs probably don't need to know your mother's maiden name. So making public the part of the tree that only includes dead people would help the historians, while keeping people safe from identity theft.

Re:Makes sense to me.

[_Sharp'r_]

Typically the way most freely available genealogical databases handle privacy/security issues is to only make available information about the deceased. That prevents stealing live birthdates, connecting live people to their mother's maiden name, etc... If an identity thief knows enough to connect you with your dead ancestors, then they already know your mother's maiden name.

One thing missing from most services is a way to blind-contact living relatives that they have records for, but aren't listing. Usually when researching your own family, getting in touch with someone that is a relative of yours and already doing their genealogy can save you years of duplicate research.

In the past (at least in the US) you had to travel to central library locations to do research on microfilm. About 10-15 years ago they started storing cd-rom sets, but its only been recently that you could do records research all over the world from the comfort of your home via the internet.

Its not all done. There are huge projects underway around the world to digitize old records. Until they are more complete, eventually you get through what's been done and have to go back to the routine of visiting cemetary churches and small government archives to try and gather info.

Hopefully this application of privacy rules doesn't set back the millions of us that like to research our family history. Can you image being told you have to travel across the world and prove your identity and relationship before being allowed to access government records they could just stick on the internet for you? Sounds like a step backwards to me.

Re:Makes sense to me.

[Mawbid]

Pretending that "mother's maiden name" is a secret is phenomenally stupid in the first place.

If one more source of mothers' maiden names crops up, that's not the problem.

Incidentally, it's funny that this comes up in a discussion related to Iceland. Icelander don't have family names and women are not renamed when they marry.

A solution...

[Simon Field]

How about setting up another, public, database that people can contribute to. Someone could then get his family tree from the private database, and contribute it to the public one.

Because of the nature of trees, it would not be long before the history buffs had all the information they would need.

Re:A solution...

[Radical Rad]

But wouldn't that invade the privacy of your ancestor's other descendants? What if people such as yourself made all the geneological information for some hypothetical person available against his wishes and it was used by a health insurance company to calculate that he has a high probability of some genetic condition which is very expensive to treat. The insurance company would certainly drop his coverage. Don't argue that they wouldn't because this type of thing has already happened many times. And they will continue to get away with it because they have lobbyists while We (the people) don't.

Re:A solution...

[Simon Field]

So, you're going to make it against the law for me to publish my family tree?

Knowing my father died of some genetic disorder does not tell you anything about my brother, or even if I have a brother.

Geneologies have never been considered private until now. Should we try to put all of the published ones in a locked box somewhere?

One answer to insurance companies dropping coverage is to get rid of insurance companies. Let there be one pool of health risk that we all pay into, and that has universal coverage.

Besides, in protecting the privacy of one person, you may be dooming others to die of some genetic disorder they could have guarded against if they had only known. If my doctor knows I have an increased risk for heart disease, he will advise me differently than if he were ignorant of that information.

The problem is not that my genes might become public. The problem is that someone might do something I don't like because of what they saw in my genome. Let's fix that problem, and then there won't be a need for secrecy.

As for lobbyists, people who let insurance money dictate who they vote for deserve the government they get.

Re:A solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

nice troll! I dont think he's gonna bite though cause you went al little over board with the get rid of all insurence companies thing. But keep trying. ..Its all in the wrist.

Re:A solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it used to be that peasants and commoners were forbidden from keeping genealogies, which were the preserve of the nobility.

Soln Equivalence File-Sharing of Copyrighted Matl

[4of12]

I've used the web to do geneological research and really was in favor of the free "rootsweb" concept when it came out.

Last I heard, though, they were struggling financially and I think they got bought up by ancestry.com, which tends to charge for access to their database if you want everything you can get. Some limited access is free.

When my relatives thought of putting up our family tree on the web, my first thought was "No way do I want anyone in the world to be able to know this much about me and my family."

When I mentioned this to my father and cousin, they agreed. Since they didn't have the know-how to setup a special SSL site, we more or less don't have an official web site and use an obscure URL.

But it's really a shame that I cannot find some way to share my geneological research with other responsible researchers that could benefit from my work to expand their own family trees - and vice versa.

This is really a good example of where you need metrics for the web of trust and a mechanism for systematically excluding more information the less you can trust someone.

However, I suspect the problem can be reduced to the same problem that applies to the distribution of copyrighted material - they wan't some control over the distribution of the information.

It would be enough for me if anyone with access posted a surety bond at PayPal - but if they re-released the information over the net, there'd be no certain way to know which of the people disclosed the information (assuming they were smart enough to munge any digital watermarks).

Seems like an encryption analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't everything before 1900, for example, be available on the web? Each person can then work his way back through whatever records necessary to link up with this storehouse.

Sweden protects its people's data pretty well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Data on individuals in Sweden may not be published,
[by way of protecting the many refugees living there.]

(In Australia, a refugee's identity & photo are
privileged only until s/he hangs himself, as has
just happened, shortly after one got word that
he'd have to go back to his home country.

The logic seems to be that - if we see refugees'
faces - we'll begin to feel like wanting to
assist them in their plight in Aussie detention
centres... located WAY out in the outback...
ie "out of sight, out of mind" - which is where
many seem to be going, ie after years "away" ...in the Southern Hemisphere's Siberia. But,
I digress...)

Last I heard, it's an offense agains Swedish Law
to put even a Swedish telephone directory online
- that goes for the directory's IP owners, too!

One problem...

[Archfeld]

95 % of this data comes from PUBLIC RECORDS, birth/death/marriage cert's, public tax records on ownership of land, etc...
I am not sure about the laws outside the US but this data is mandated public access in the US, for a nominal handling fee.
As for the insurance company example I can't argue with you there, but to expect a profit driven corporation to do anything else is naive in the extreme.