Society split in disk info row

By KEVIN TAYLOR

Members of the Society of Genealogists are worried that its CD-Rom, which holds information on between 80,000 and 90,000 living people, could fall into the wrong hands.

Three past-presidents and an ex-editor of the society's magazine complained in January to Privacy Commissioner Bruce Slane on behalf of a group of more than 200 members.

One of the past-presidents, Colleen Main, said they were concerned that information on 80,000 to 90,000 living people was put on the CD-Rom without their knowledge or consent.

About 2000 copies have been sold - only to society members - but the group argues that the information could easily leak into wider circulation.

Society president Heather Webber disputed the claims, saying strict provisions existed to control the information, and the CD-Rom did not breach the Privacy Act.

She said even if it got into the public arena, the worst people would find was someone's date of birth, which was publicly available anyway.

The $49.95 disk was released in November for society members to buy, and contains 2.6 million records. These include the society's certificates collection - for births, deaths and marriages - up to the early 1990s.

The disk also contains school admission records up to 1940. Mrs Main said that data might identify someone's parents, or even whether they were fostered or came from an orphanage.

The CD-Rom also contains the pedigrees of about 4000 society members, information originally supplied in the belief it would only be held in an archive.

Mrs Main said there was concern that information could get out of the society's control.

"When we started this collection 30 years ago nobody had any notions it could come to this," she said. "We operated manual systems with card indexes and we relied on a person to act as a facilitator between the submitter and the inquirer."

Mrs Main said an easily transportable CD-Rom meant the society could lose control of the information, and it was open to misuse. Some members feared the information could end up being published on the internet.

She said another alarming issue was that through the disk the maiden name of a person's mother could be discovered, a common form of identification required by banks.

The Privacy Commissioner's decision could be up to 18 months away.