[Genealib] Records Access

[Joy Rich]

Thanks for bringing up the issue of identity theft, Michael.

Federal and state legislation that denies access to vital and other records by the 
American public to thwart identity theft is rooted in panic and misinformation. An 
excellent essay about this, titled "Identity Theft and Vital Records," is at 
http://www.fgs.org/rpa/IDTheft%20Essay.doc .

Congress is currently attempting to amend the Freedom of Information Act to increase the 
public's access to government information. The bill passed by the House is shown at
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1309 . A summary is at 
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?tab=summary&bill=h110-1309 . The Senate has not 
yet voted on the bill.

Several websites keep the public informed about the connection (or lack of one) between 
records access by the public and identity theft and the misuse of personal information.

Federation of Genealogical Societies Records Preservation and Access Committee
http://www.fgs.org/rpa

National Genealogical Society Records Preservation and Access Committee
http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/comrecords.cfm

International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies Public Records Access and
Monitoring Committee
http://www.iajgs.org/legislation/legislation.html

The next meeting of the FGS/NGS Records Preservation and Access Committee will be at next 
week's NGS conference in Richmond, Virginia.

Joy

Joy Rich
Member, Association of Professional Genealogists

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 09:21:58 -0700
From: "Michael Kirley" <mkirley at lapl.org>
Subject: [Genealib] Obituaries
To: "genealib" <genealib at lists.acomp.usf.edu>
Message-ID: <BEECIHLJGBLNIKJHBFPLCEDECGAA.mkirley at lapl.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

On Tuesday, the Today show did a feature on identity theft of the deceased.
The recommendation was made to leave out birth dates and other personal
information from obituaries which would certainly be unpopular with
genealogists.  Here is a link to the segment:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18495531/

Michael Kirley