GACHATTA-L Archives

From: "Kemis Massey" <>
Subject: [GACHATTA] Fw: Privacy issues
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 12:03:38 -0400

This one is a little long, but I feel it's something important to share.

>From another list:


I will no longer share a gedcom, even with a direct relative. There is nothing quite like finding your data posted with living people without their permission (errors and all) and claimed as someone else's work. Go to www. google.com and put in your email address and see what comes up.
============================
Privacy issues

Good morning everyone.

I would like to take a minute to share with everyone that information about living persons should not be placed online.

It violates their privacy and could injure them.

The thumb of rule is.

100 years birth
75 years marriage
50 years death.

Have you invaded the privacy of your living relatives by passing along genealogical data about them to someone else without their expressed written permission?

You may have if you have shared your genealogical databases or research notes with a third party. While the dead do not have a right to privacy, the living certainly do. Is personal information about you, your children and living relatives posted on a web page where any crook or kook can find it?

If may be if you have shared your genealogical data via GEDCOM, pedigree charts or family group sheets with others.

Use any search engine and look for your names.

Be sure to check GenDex (http://www.gendex.com) as well as visit some of the commercial websites who encourage software owners of their products to contribute their GEDCOMS.

What you find may surprise you.

One genealogist found her entire working database posted -- errors and all -- on another's website. The material had been passed along via a cousin of a cousin, without her knowledge or consent.

Genealogists are sharing, caring people, and most of us think nothing of handing over all of our genealogical data to distant cousins, even strangers. However, we should start thinking about the ramifications of our actions.

The idea of sharing genealogical information is good, and technology has made it easy. However, technology is not an exclusive tool for honest people. If detailed personal information about you and your living relatives is on the Internet, crooks can and do find it, and some scam artist may use it to hoodwink your grandmother into giving out the secrets that will open her bank account.

It has happened.

Remember your living relatives have the same rights to privacy that you do, and among these rights are:

-- The right to be free of unreasonable and highly offensive intrusions into one's seclusion, including the right to be free of highly objectionable disclosure of private information in which the public has no legitimate interest;

-- Appropriation of one's name or likeness by another without consent; and

-- False light in the public eye -- the right to avoid false attributions of authorship or association.

Publishing genealogical information about a living person without their consent -- putting it on a GEDCOM, chart or the web -- may involve any or all three aspects of their right to privacy. They may be able to seek legal relief through a civil lawsuit.

What can you do?

-- If you find someone has posted information about you or living relatives on the Internet, ask them to take it down. Be as forceful as is necessary.

-- If you are a webmaster, do not put others' genealogical data on your site without their written permission, and never include information about living persons.

-- Exclude information about any living persons from your GEDCOMS and charts before sharing them with anyone. Most genealogy software will allow you to exclude all persons born after a particular date, which you can pick such as
1920, 1910 or 1900, for example. Or use a handy freeware utility program called GEDClean that is available for downloading at:
(http://www.raynorshyn.com/gedclean).

-- Educate yourself about privacy issues on the Internet: http://www.onlinegenealogy . com/aug96/aug96.html

Share your genealogical data on ancestors. However, do not intrude on the privacy of your living relatives, and do not allow them to violate yours.

(c) 1997, Los Angeles Times Syndicate Myra Vanderpool Gormley and Julie Case are co-editors of Missing Links, a free weekly genealogy e-zine. http://www.ancestry.com/columns/myra/Shaking_Family_Tree10-29-98.htm

Originally published: 10/30/97

http://www.tegger.net/genealogy/articles/1997-1999/arc971030.htm

Personal privacy on the Web

As I and others have often said, genealogists want to find as much data online as possible. At the same time, some are saying, "Whoa, that's TOO much information!" Why would someone looking for information say such a thing?

Perhaps they've found their own genealogical information published without their consent on a Web site, in an email discussion list, or in an article on a newsgroup. Or maybe they're concerned that it could be published without their consent.

Is this a valid concern?

I'm no legal expert, but I've read a considerable amount of material from authoritative sources.

Gary Hoffman wrote an excellent article concerning this subject for the Journal of Online Genealogy a few months ago. Rather than rehash what he and others have said so well, I want to explore the possibilities and ask the most common questions I hear "real people" ask... I'll leave the answers to the experts
http://www.cpsr.org/program/privacy/privacy.html
and the judgement up to you.

"Why shouldn't I publish all the data I have?"

First, we must understand that typical genealogical information about a person includes their birth date and place, parents, siblings, spouse, marriage date and place, children, and death date and place (assuming that all such infomation about that individual is known). Many times, such data also includes current place of residence, medical conditions, divorce information, Social Security Number, cause of death, and sometimes even addresses and/or phone numbers.

\The following are some points I've often heard brought up regarding such information being published:

A living person's mother's maiden name could be found and possibly used for impersonation to gain access to bank accounts.

A living individual may be trying to avoid having a person from their past find them. Perhaps an earlier abusive spouse, parent, or someone else had threatened them with bodily harm.

A living person may have been involved in a criminal case (either as victim or perpetrator) and is trying to put the past behind them and "turn over a new leaf."

The more information published, the more likely that someone could use a person's data to impersonate them for a variety of criminal mishief.

The information published about an individual may be incorrect, possibly even to the point of causing defamation of character in extreme cases.

A deceased person may have died as a result of suicide or a brutal crime, and family members prefer that such information remain away from public scrutiny.

There are also several counter-arguments to the points above, chief among them being that if an unscrupulous person wanted information for criminal mishief, there are already many places where such is available. For example, marriages, divorces, and many criminal, civil, and family court cases are a matter of public record in most states in the U.S. Also, almost anyone can find birth and death information (although an adopted person's data can prove trickier, as any adoptee researching their roots can tell you).

"Where do I draw the line?"

Ah, the trickiest part of all. It has been suggested by some that a good rule of thumb would be to omit publishing any information at all about people born in the past 100 years.

But that would leave great gaps in most family histories, would it not? Ok, so only include data on dead persons, right? What if you published information on someone who was erroneously believed deceased? There's also the argument that all parents, siblings, spouses, and children are an integral part of a family tree, so how could one leave any one of those out?

On another hand, there is the suggestion to publish pretty much anything on dead individuals, but only the actual vital statistics on living individuals - and only on those who have given their express consent. If consent isn't given or can't be gained, the suggestion is to list names and relationships only. Unfortunately, no plan is perfect, but again, I leave it to you to be the judge.

Written by Terri Lamb, to find more of her articles visit her site at http://www.tegger.net/genealogy/articles/1997-1999/index.htm

Further reading may be seen here along with other great information on genealogy research, tips, hints and how to's.

http://genealogy.about.com/blarticleindex.htm

"What good is knowledge if not shared?"



Happy family hunting,
kemis massey
CC - Muscogee and Chattahoochee Counties, GA

Researching: DUKE, EVANS, HICKEY, MAYS, ROSAMOND, SONGER, and CAMP for me
Researching: BROOKS, CHAMBERS, MASSEY, FOUNTAIN, and SMITH for my hubbie
and CLAPP Factory Cemetery in Columbus, GA for preservation purposes

This thread:

• [GACHATTA] Fw: Privacy issues by "Kemis Massey" <>