Data protection and privacy

As One-Namers, collecting data is an important part of our studies, and this will include information on living people. This naturally raises the question of the privacy of living people and the Data Protection laws that govern this. Guild members are spread over the globe, and the law varies from one country to another, which in itself creates further complexities in the rules governing the export of data across borders.

The laws within the European Union are particularly stringent, and require organisations and individuals to register (in the UK with the Office of the Information Commissioner) if they process "personal data" - that is, data on a living person who can be identified from that information, possibly in conjunction with other data held. This data includes that held on computers or other organised filing systems, such as a card index.

Contrary to what many believe, personal data includes that available from publicly available sources, such as the birth, marriage and death indexes. The UK Data Protection Act 1998 does have a number of special exemptions for domestic, recreational and research purposes, and there are some different rules for journalism. However, in the absence of clear case law, it would not be sensible to believe that One-Namers can rely on these.

On the other hand, such laws are only likely to be important if the likelihood of prosecution is real. The Information Commissioner is unlikely to want to waste public money pursuing individual genealogists - unless you were being quite reckless - and even action against companies is taken only when there have been persistent breaches of the rules.

The best advice is to see the issue from a practical and ethical point of view. The people you contact will come from a range of different national and cultural backgrounds and will inevitably have differing views on what constitutes "private information". If you annoy your network of genealogy contacts, they are unlikely to continue assisting you. Therefore the best advice is not to share any information on living people (even publicly available data) without the consent of the individuals concerned. Also be aware that some people might be sensitive about certain information relating to deceased ancestors, even if the law is more relaxed in this area.

If you are running a One-Name Society, then rather different issues arise, as you will be sharing much data amongst your members, and registration would be sensible.

The above should be taken as general guidance only, and is not to be considered legal advice. Further information on Data Protection in the UK is at the OPSI (Office of Public Sector Information) website (which gives the 1998 Act in full), and at the ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) website.