CIGO SUBMISSION ON GRONI CONSULTATION PAPER
1. INFORMATION 1.1. The Council for Irish Genealogical Organisations (CIGO) is an umbrella group representing the genealogical community within Ireland and worldwide. It grew out of the 'GRO User's Group' formed in the early 1990's. It represents almost all of Ireland's societies and organisations involved in genealogical research as well as a number of others based in the English-speaking world. In Northern Ireland, the North of Ireland Family History Society is the largest group with membership of CIGO and in addition to this it will also be submitting its own response to the GRONI consultation document. 1.2. On the subject of Consultation, we would like first to draw your attention to the fact that the GRONI 'User's Group' has not met for over a year. At a time of proposed change within the Civil Registration Services in Ireland and in the UK, it is unfortunate that an established consultation forum appears to have been allowed to lapse. We would not wish to see the GRONI 'User's Group' disbanded. 1.3. Users of the GRONI research facilities are conscious of the fact that, unlike the arrangements in Dublin and elsewhere in the UK, we impinge on a 'working office environment'. We wish to record our thanks to your staff at Chichester Street office for consistently providing a high quality, personalised service within the constraints that currently operate. Any endeavours by yourselves to effectively and efficiently deal with the future accessibility of both 'historic' and 'current' records will be supported by CIGO along with any assistance that can be provided by our members. 1.4. We also wish to commend your work in computerisation of records and improving accessibility of pre-1922 Indexes through digitisation . Centralisation of the Marriage Registers pre-1922 would also be advantageous to researchers, but we recognise that there would have to be linkage with the proposals on 'historic' and 'current' documents. 1.5. Your document, ‘Civil Registration in the 21st. Century, Modernising a Vital Service' has been studied by our members and we make a collective submission on behalf of CIGO but accept that individual members and groups may also wish to make submission to GRONI directly.
2. THE CONSULTATION PAPER 2.2. We applaud the clear and concise way in which your document has set out the proposals. No one doubts that in this increasingly technological age, the Civil Registration service, along with so many other organisations , should seek to make use of new technology. The key principals shown (Context for the Review -1.6) are important 'benchmarks' but there are concerns by CIGO that a broader 'agenda' outside of your control is driving certain aspects of proposed reform. These will be addressed in Part 3 of this document. 2.3. Your core values as stated in 1.7 are also valued statements, which reflect the service given by the Registration service. However, what is noticeable by its absence is a statement on accessibility. Since its inception, citizens have had a ‘right of access' to information that it is now proposed to 'tinker' with on the grounds of privacy. Whilst not wishing to make any political statement, CIGO finds it incongruous that in both jurisdictions within this island and with a history of intimidation and impersonation connected with the 'troubles', it is only now that privacy issues are being put forward with a view to limiting accessibility. 2.4. We do not propose to comment on the proposals made in 1 to 4 and 6 of the Consultation document. This is in no way to marginalize what are in fact innovative and helpful ways of improving the service in future. Our main concerns are with Section 5 - Uses of Registration Information that contains statements and proposals with which we would take issue and which we feel require clarification. 3. CIGO's CONCERNS 3.1. Section 5.5 - Replacement of paper certificates by on-line access. In general this aspiration receives our full support, as does any proposal to improve the retrieval of genealogical material. What should not be forgotten though is that for private or commercial reasons, a paper record of a life event is currently in line with your Core Value on Integrity (1.7) and possibly will be so for the foreseeable future. If electronic linkage is provided from the GRO to other Government agencies in the interests of efficiency then all well and good. We would be concerned though as to who within the 'private sector' would be allowed access to information, which it is proposed to deny to the ordinary citizen. The down-side of such a proposal would be to disadvantage, for example, an adoptee seeking their birth Mother of Father and for whom the proposed 'confidential information' may prove vital in their quest. This appears to go against your core values, to the advantage of commercial interests. Basically put, the Civil Registration service of the future would no longer be a repository of records accessible to the citizen but a selective provider of information. 3.2. Section 5.6 -. Personal Privacy From the inception of Civil Registration the citizen has had the right to search the Indexes and, on payment, receive a copy of all the information relating to an event of birth, marriage or death. Whatever the ethos of Victorian society or the intentions of the original legislators, there seems to have been a desire that in creating a system which citizens were obliged to participate in through legislation there would also be unrestricted access. Genealogical research as we know and practice it today would not have been a major concern of those legislators, but the issues of property rights, paternity and related matters would have been. The registration system as set up in the 1844 and 1863 Acts specifically allows the diligent researcher to link life events together in order to trace people, either forward or backward in time – thus a very vital and valuable public service is performed. 3.3. With the advent of formal Adoption procedures in the 20 th century, Civil Registration added to its services a means whereby Adoptees could, should they so wish, search for their birth parents or the families of those parents. We have already mentioned in 3.1 above one way in which an Adoptee could be disadvantaged in their searches and another way would be the denial in future of certain information from the Register entries. Addresses and occupations are pieces of the 'jigsaw' in any form of genealogical research and are vital if connections are to be made with other records. It is a ‘chicken and egg situation'! For many people researching their families, a holistic view is taken and it becomes more than just a collection of names and dates. Medical information from death register entries is increasingly being used to plot ill-health trends in families. It is accepted internationally that when searching for ill-health trends in families a researcher must not restrict their searching to the immediate family group only but must look also at the extended family. 3.4. Whilst CIGO speaks for all researchers, we have a number professional genealogists amongst our membership who provide valuable input on matters that impact on research generally. One of these areas is that of probate research. In their searches for inheritors of estates, Probate Genealogists are probably amongst the most valued customers of the Registration service! Proposals to restrict information on events would severely hamper such research that is difficult enough already. Also, professional genealogists are working for people who, for whatever reason, are unable to carry out their own 'family history' research. Since 'family history' research is now accepted as one of the fastest growing leisure pursuits in the world, it seems to us to be unfair to make distinctions between researchers. 3.5. Restricting disclosure of full information on an event to those other than ".... individuals, their families or agencies having legally prescribed access" will create a two-tier system of accessibility which is contrary to the original ethos of the Registration Service, the legislation which set it up and to its present day values. As there is not differing levels of citizenship then there should not be differing levels of access. Civil Registration is there for every citizen to make use of. It is a citizen's right to know certain basic information about any and every other citizen in society. If anything, there is a case for enhancing the information that can be provided so that events can be properly linked together through the information recorded. Issuing certificates with little or no identifying information about those named will only make the perpetration of fraud easier. Further, how can any of the information recorded in Northern Irish birth, death or marriage records to restricted when the actual full register entries (along with their corresponding indexes) are already held on microfilm by the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) for the period 1922 to 1959? These films are already available throughout the Mormon's Church's several hundred worldwide family history libraries. Also, if the period of restriction to certain data fields is set at 100 years, then what account is to be taken of the fact that records relating to the six counties of Ireland which now constitute Northern Ireland are (at present) readily available at the General Register Office, Dublin? As the proposals state that only the subject of the record (or their next of kin if deceased) will have the power to authorise another person to access the restricted information, this means that any person who is unable to conduct their own research will in future not even be able to commission another person or organisation to do it for them. This effectively means that for those who die without known next-of-kin nobody will be entitled to undertake any research to try to locate their relations as there are no known relations to ask for the permission required. Very clearly, beneficiaries to estates will loose out under the proposed access restrictions and eventually is bound to lead to litigation. Further, in the case of a death record, the informant, whose name, address and relationship to the deceased are noted in the record, might not be the deceased's actual (or closest) next-of-kin. In such an instance, the informant's data could be made public by the deceased's executors or next-of-kin giving permission to a third party to access the full data in the death record. In such an instance, what rights will the informant have? Rather than generally restricting certain data fields in some periods of the records, would it not make more sense (and prove to be a much cheaper service to fund) if all applicants for certificates had to provide proof of their identity and a computerized note was made which records they were obtaining copies of? (Such a system has operated in more recent years in the GRO, London). Further, a new type of certificate could be issued which would state something to the effect that “ This certificate was issued to someone other than the person(s) named there-in ”. Again, we also express our concern at the points raised in 3.1 (above) as to who the “...agencies having legally prescribed access” will be and upon what criteria access will be granted to them. 3.6. CIGO poses the question - "What has changed in society generally that the proposed ‘privacy' measures are even being considered?" In an age of 'freedom of information' there should be no curbs or restrictions on existing rights without good reason. So far, Government has not come up with any good reasons. Vague references to "fraud prevention" from some quarters are not helpful and are akin to suggesting that withdrawing credit cards would prevent credit card fraud! We do not live in a perfect world and there will always be people who wish to 'buck the system' or subvert it to their own ends. We contend that proposed measures on privacy are using a 'sledgehammer to crack a nut' and that they will adversely affect the vast majority of the customer base of the Registration Service. As mentioned already in 3.5, would it not be better to bring in security measures to verify the identity of those wishing to obtain full details from civil registration records which were compiled less than a prescribed number of years? 3.7. Section 5.7 - Distinction between 'historical' and 'recent' records. We accept that there is a need to make such an administrative distinction in order to help distinguish between records the Registration Service feels it no longer needs to retain and those which can be passed onto to an archive (PRONI, for instance). Also, it improves access to those records by making them more freely available. If such a move is not to be embodied in statute then there should be set up a Panel of Archivists and Users to determine the issue. CIGO would be willing to provide representation on such a Panel. What really concerns us in this proposal is the linkage to 'recent' records and future accessibility of information. We take issue with the statement "Genealogists have claimed that it would not be harmful to the individual if records of over 75 or 100 years old could be accessed in full and that privacy rights would not be broken." No one in our organisation has made such a statement nor would they. Nor are we aware of any Genealogists or researchers outside of CIGO who have made such statements. By nature of their interest, or in the case of commercial researchers, their profession, the collection of information is vital to the task. CIGO poses the following questions in relation to the alleged statement from Genealogists: -
3.8. CIGO is concerned that a subtle but insidious ‘culture of secrecy' is being imposed on Society because of commercial exploitation of information in the public domain. A recent example has been the restrictions imposed by the UK Electoral Office on the information from the Electoral Rolls. A ‘two-tier' system has been invoked and what was once freely available to researchers is no longer so. However, this does not completely bar ‘certain agencies' from having access to the full Electoral oll (for example, all credit reference agencies), so it would appear that commercial interests come before the interests of genuine researchers. We would not like to see the Civil Registration service going down the same road but all the indications are that this is what is proposed 4. CONCLUSIONS 4.1. Having discussed the contents of the Consultation Paper in the preceding three paragraphs and put forward various views and arguments, we will conclude this report by answering the questions posed in the Annex, pages 15 and 16. It is not proposed to reproduce each question but merely to show the number.
27th October 2003 |
Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations |