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Re: confidentialty and collections



This is an important issue, and one which many archives deal with - when do
we give access to personal information?  In my position, I work with the
Canadian federal access and privacy legislation, so I have a guide which I
can use for deciding what kind of acess can be granted, and I am sure that
your jurisdiction has similar models available.  Last year I presented a
paper  to the Association of Canadian Archivists' annual conference on the
standards used at the National Archives of Canada for the release of personal
information from federal records and was suprised both by the interest, and
by the numbers of people who requested copies of our guidelines to use as
models for their own archives.

Generally, we will not release invade personal information unless the
individual has been deceased for twenty years, or is 110 years old, or in the
case of census material the census took place more than 92 years ago, or the
release of the information would not constitute an invasion of the privacy of
the person concerned.  Now this latter point is where it gets interesting
because  you have to decide whether or not releasing the information is an
unwarranted invasion-of-privacy .

In order to help make this determination we use a four-pronged test in which
we attempt to weigh the (a)expectations of the individual; (b) the
sensitivity of the information; (c) the probability of injury, and; (d) the
context of the file.  Taking all these factors into account we decide whether
or bnot the information can be released.  Since mediacl information is
generally considered as sensitive (see "b" above) we would not release that
type of information unless there were other factors taken into account which
mitigated tehir sensitivity.  On the other hand, teh type of medical
information should be considered as info on someone having the Flu in 1919 is
not very sensitive but having HIV in 1999 would be.

Daniel German
ATIP Analyst
National Archives of Canada
(613) 996-3125
dgerman@archives.ca


---------- Original Text ----------

From: "Heather Tennies" <htennies@MARAUDER.MILLERSV.EDU>, on 2000-04-13 1:25
PM:

We have received donations recently of doctors' records. Some include
patient names, etc. These records are of visits to the doctor, reason,
diagnosis, and treatment. The records would be of interest to genealogists
as well as scholars studying a particular disease or methods of treatment,
etc.

How long should these records remain confidential? The census guideline of
75 years does not seem sufficient in all cases, since the patient or
children would not want those records made public. We will not make
records from 1925 to the present accessible, but we have questions about
1900-1925.

I would appreciate any advice on this issue. Thank you.

Heather S. Tennies
Archivist
Lancaster County Historical Society
230 N President
Lancaster, PA 17603
(717) 392-4633

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