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Re: confidentialty and collections



One quick comment regarding confidentiality concerns. I work in local
government, and was recently talking with a common pleas court official.
She said that recently a law was passed requiring social security numbers
on all marriage applications in Ohio, and that these records are to
remain open, with no provision made for redaction. In this day and age of
heightened awareness of privacy concerns, how is it possible for such a
law to be considered, much less enacted? Any thoughts on this would be
greatly appreciated.
Chris


On Thu, 13 Apr 2000 15:57:56 EDT Daniel German <dgerman@ARCHIVES.CA>
writes:
> 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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Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>