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Question Privacy Issues

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10 years 11 months ago - 10 years 10 months ago #41 by Jackie
Replied by Jackie on topic Privacy Issues
Hi,

All this conversation started by "Privacy".. therefore information about living people. Besides the date and place of birth, what is "Private" nowadays?

Marriages are often published in advance in newspaper or bans are declared at the church.
Deaths are often published in newspaper including names of relatives, wife, children, etc.
and so on..

The Quebec law says to protect information of livings of less than 100 years and of deads of less than 30 years in respect for the relatives. Actually, the deads' privacy of 30 years is nothing more than theorical. In fact, most of all newspapers (and obituary websites) publishes all details of deceased.
Last edit: 10 years 10 months ago by Jackie.

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10 years 10 months ago #42 by macalter
Replied by macalter on topic Privacy Issues
<quote Jackie>
Hiding names of livings ? What is the point when you publish it at the bottom of your website (contact the admin)? What is the point to hide your address when it is published in directories or you have to declare it when you register for a domain name and this can be found easily? </quote>

Quite true. While reading this thread, I tossed back and forth my thoughts so decided to see the policy for JewishGen's "Family Tree of the Jewish People". they have tens of thousands of users (free but must register with full identification). Their privacy, which I personally have seen change over the years I used it:

<FTJP>
Name
Date and place of birth
Date and place of each marriage
Date and place of death
Links to parents, spouse(s), and children

However, provisions have been made for privacy of living persons, based upon lengthy discussions which took place in the JewishGen Discussion Group several years ago. All GEDCOM files submitted to the JewishGen FTJP are subject to the "100 year rule". And I've found typos where a parent born in 1720 has a child born in 1940.

The "100 year rule" states that for every person born within the last 100 years for whom no date of death is shown, dates and places of birth and marriage will not be included. Thus the only information provided about living individuals will be their name, and the links to parents, spouse(s) and offspring. Only for deceased individuals will dates and places also be displayed.

For living persons, the family tree retains the integrity of family relationships, but will not invade the privacy of people who do not wish dates of birth and marriages revealed.

No source information or notes will be displayed in the JewishGen FTJP for any individual at any time. Only the five items indicated in the list above will be displayed.
</>

That doesn't mean all records are private if person is living. I've found some where birth is shown. I've gone back to others where I did see birth and now it's private. As said here, humans make mistakes. So does computer code. But Jackie is right on -- you can find so many other means for obtaining "private" data. Gee, I info just 10 years after an uncle in the USA died via his SSDI. Not the 100 years stated for other sources.

I don't have my site open to visitors. Just changed settings so that an account set to visitor status is possible. They see dead people. However, while FTJP shows living people's names, webtrees does not.

---
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10 years 10 months ago #43 by andrewg_oz
Replied by andrewg_oz on topic Privacy Issues
Several different issues have been raised, but the topic is privacy, so I'll stick to that.

Privacy of living people is claimed to be of high importance. This issue has demonstrated that the privacy of the records of living people, with no data errors in their records, is being violated by webtrees. Seemingly, this is considered acceptable. Is that truly the case?

ToyGuy wrote: what is recognized as a very infrequent problem

Recognized by whom? What evidence? I ask because the problem was only noticed by chance. This problem could be silently occurring with every single webtrees installation! There is no evidence it is either an infrequent problem or a frequent problem, just that it IS a problem.

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  • StuartG
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10 years 10 months ago #44 by StuartG
Replied by StuartG on topic Privacy Issues
Thanks to all who have responded. Your comments have been enlightening, especially some of those recently made by fisharebest e.g.

Instead of using allowing webtrees to calculate privacy using dates and rules, I add a RESN tag to *every* one of my records. A public/dead individual will have "1 RESN none", while a private/dead individual will have "1 RESN privacy".

This takes privacy and the work involved to another level!

I have very strong views about the subject of this discussion (have you noticed?) and I apologise if my postings have been interpreted by some as being made too strongly. From the postings it appears that I am the odd man out (maybe with one or two others) and, perhaps, an odd person altogether according to some.

I would like to review everyone's postings over the next few days and then would like to post a closing summary that should mean that this topic will never need to be raised again.

Stuart
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10 years 10 months ago #45 by fisharebest
Replied by fisharebest on topic Privacy Issues

Seemingly, this is considered acceptable. Is that truly the case?


Two solutions have been suggested. Both have downsides:

1) enhance the logic of the "isDead()" function to look at the semantics of each fact, rather than just the dates.

This would cause a significant increase in memory requirements.

2) just look at the individual record and ignore the dates of relatives.

This would cause very many old records (with no dates at all) to suddenly become invisible/private. For example, at the roots of the tree, it is common to know the names of the mother/father, but to have no dates. If these are private, then so is their family record, which includes the next generation down. Unless, of course, the admin adds an empty death record to perhaps tens of thousands of individuals.

Many think that the downsides outweigh the benefits.

IMHO, it is better to seek out and correct these data errors, than it is to ignore them. I'm still looking at the options for this, but I've designed some simple, light-weight, code that can check for anomalous age differences between generations and spouses, etc.

Greg Roach - greg@subaqua.co.uk - @fisharebest@phpc.social - fisharebest.webtrees.net

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10 years 10 months ago #46 by Jackie
Replied by Jackie on topic Privacy Issues
Hi,

What other genealogy softwares calculate the privacy of livings? I thought it was based upon born < 100 or something else ?

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10 years 10 months ago #47 by andrewg_oz
Replied by andrewg_oz on topic Privacy Issues
1) The existing enhancement of isDead to consider context is the cause of the current problem. I'm not sure that further enhancement would improve things, in fact I'd expect the opposite.

2) I consider this the best option.

Records for very old people without death events contain data entry errors - errors of omission. This unwillingness to add death events to dead people would seem to be a major root cause of this problem, and I just don't understand why it is so? The very reasons that people are happy for isDead to use now are the exact same reasons they can add an explicit death event.

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10 years 10 months ago - 10 years 10 months ago #48 by taalia81
Replied by taalia81 on topic Privacy Issues

andrewg_oz wrote: 1) The existing enhancement of isDead to consider context is the cause of the current problem. I'm not sure that further enhancement would improve things, in fact I'd expect the opposite.

2) I consider this the best option.

Records for very old people without death events contain data entry errors - errors of omission. This unwillingness to add death events to dead people would seem to be a major root cause of this problem, and I just don't understand why it is so? The very reasons that people are happy for isDead to use now are the exact same reasons they can add an explicit death event.


For me, adding the fact implies I know something of the event and I use the facts in the system to show information that I know or am sure of. I know that all INDIs were born but I don't see the need to go and add the event fact until I know something specific about it, I feel the same way about the death facts.

I prefer that the facts are there to show information that is known about INDIs and FAMs and that other system functions are used to determine who/what is private or not.

fisharebest wrote: IMHO, it is better to seek out and correct these data errors, than it is to ignore them. I'm still looking at the options for this, but I've designed some simple, light-weight, code that can check for anomalous age differences between generations and spouses, etc.


I would much prefer a way to identify and therefore correct incorrect data rather than make the change to the way the system works now.
Last edit: 10 years 10 months ago by taalia81.

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10 years 10 months ago #49 by kiwi
Replied by kiwi on topic Privacy Issues

Jackie wrote: All this conversation started by "Privacy".. therefore information about living people. Besides the date and place of birth, what is "Private" nowadays?

Marriages are often published in advance in newspaper or bans are declared at the church.
Deaths are often published in newspaper including names of relatives, wife, children, etc.
and so on..


Jackie, I couldn't agree more :-)

Just as an aside, a new member of my site recently challenged me on this. So I offered to research her on the web. All I had was her married name, and a clue that she had fairly recently changed her given name. By chance her married surname was reasonably uncommon. I also knew she was somehow related to my English ancestors, but only through a marriage about 4 generations back.

Within 60 minutes I knew her date of birth, marriage date and place, her job and employer details, where she lives (actually in the USA), her address and phone number, her husband's name and details, their children's names, the current value of their home, the university (in England) she studied at, and a photograph of her!!! Plus her interest in environmental issues thanks to a quote she had made reported in a local newspaper.

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10 years 10 months ago - 10 years 10 months ago #50 by kiwi
Replied by kiwi on topic Privacy Issues

taalia81 wrote: I would much prefer a way to identify and therefore correct incorrect data rather than make the change to the way the system works now.


Becky, I totally agree with you. However, I do think that the only really useful solution for that would be to actually include such warnings on the edit / add window as the dates are being entered. Having them as semi-permanent warnings on the completed individual page, as Greg suggested, I don't think really works, particularly for admins accepting changes other users have made.

If including warnings like this on the add/edit pop-ups can be achieved, then great, I am 100% in favour. Although I must say that if we can implement such a live checking system there are other things I would see as more valuable, such as immediate checking for possible duplicate individuals.

I am not sure therefore if what Greg is considering will resolve much. I am sure it will not satisfy everyone.

For myself, I am satisfied webtrees already has all the tools I need to recognise these rare errors. What I do find though is that it is sometimes hard to see exactly where the error (or perhaps "anomaly") causing a living person to be displayed comes from. For that reason, and being impatient, I have created my own add-on module to help with that (and nothing more). It tells me what the current privacy status of each individual is in a discrete sidebar element, and adds a brief narrative explaining why. If anyone else finds such a tool useful it is available at kiwitrees.net/simpl-add-ons/?did=16

Finally, I would like to add my appreciation to StuartG for raising this discussion. I do agree it is an important issue. I may not agree with Stuart's solution, but that does not detract from the value of the debate.
Ultimately, as Greg has explained, the current structure of webtrees code and database limits the ability to approach this issue differently, in a manner acceptable to everyone. But I am hopeful that a future replacement for the current product will address the entire question of privacy differently, and in doing so will have benefited from this debate.
Last edit: 10 years 10 months ago by kiwi.

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10 years 10 months ago - 10 years 10 months ago #51 by cj_nza
Replied by cj_nza on topic Privacy Issues
Andrew said:

Records for very old people without death events contain data entry errors - errors of omission.


Applications that simply record genealogical information on a local installation does not need to deal with privacy issues as the local nature of the application addresses that inherently.

I would presume to say, the majority of researchers in such an environment will not create DEAT records for which they have no supporting evidence (me included).

To suggest that the absence of a DEAT record is an error of omission suggests that all missing information is errors of omission. This is most definitely not the case; treating DEAT records as such means you believe that a DEAT record is more important than other types of facts.


I do genealogical research and choose to use a web based application (for various reasons). In doing so my software of choice introduces privacy issues by being publicly visible.

I would like to have my cake and eat it too. I would like to continue to record my research findings as I always did (ie no mandatory records) and have webtrees deal with the privacy of records based on certain instructions I gave regarding the age at which a person is presumed dead.


Greg said:

Two solutions have been suggested. Both have downsides:

1) enhance the logic of the "isDead()" function to look at the semantics of each fact, rather than just the dates.

2) just look at the individual record and ignore the dates of relatives.


Greg if your function attempts to calculate if an individual’s age exceeds the limit any date recorded against that individual is more relevant than dates recorded against relatives.

My view would be that if dates are available for an individual, use them. If no dates are available only then attempt to place the individual in time by evaluating the immediate family members.
Last edit: 10 years 10 months ago by cj_nza.

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10 years 10 months ago #52 by cj_nza
Replied by cj_nza on topic Privacy Issues
Jackie said

All this conversation started by "Privacy".. therefore information about living people. Besides the date and place of birth, what is "Private" nowadays?


Ah semantics,

Privacy, means different things for different people.

For some, like me, it means the freedom to choose what information about us we put in the public domain (legislation etc excluded).

Nobody here claimed or as far as I know promoted anonymity. Should you be so inclined and have time to spare, sure you can research me and find plenty of factoids about me, so what?

When I collect information of living people I let myself be guided by the New Zealand Information Privacy Principles.

Principle 3 … when an agency (me) collects personal information directly from the individual concerned, it must take reasonable steps to ensure the individual is aware of:
• the fact that the information is being collected;
• the purpose;
• the intended recipients;
• …
• the individual’s rights of access to and correction of personal information.


In my family I have very private people and let’s say the opposite of that.

A significant portion of information I collect is not public, (in the sense that you can sit at a computer half a world away and access it). I collect and publish information of the private individuals under the understanding that the audience of that information is known and limited.

Privacy is the freedom to only have your pedigree displayed to the world when you so choose.

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10 years 10 months ago #53 by StuartG
Replied by StuartG on topic Privacy Issues
This discussion is really developing into something meaningful. I encourage other Forum members to make their views known as the more opinions expressed, the easier it will be to establish a meaningful consensus.

Like other Forum members have expressed, I also did not enter events until sources were found. Over the years I have changed my mind in relation to birth and death in particular.

There were several reasons why I changed my mind. One of these reasons can be found in the Gedcom specification. Here is a quotation from part of the specification.

All GEDCOM lines have either a value or a pointer unless the line contains subordinate GEDCOM lines. In other words the presence of a level number and a tag alone should not be
used to assert data (i.e. 1 DEAT Y should be used to imply [emphasis added by me] a death known to have happened but date and place are unknown, not 1 DEAT ).


I therefore use the 1 BIRT Y and 1 DEAT Y tags to imply that these events occurred. In respect to death, it is generally agreed that you can imply/assume a death after xxx (120 is the default value in webtrees) number of years following birth.

I agree with a previous post that not entering a 1 DEAT Y tag where it is applicable, is an error of omission, which can have a flow on deleterious affect as webtrees tries to calculate whether someone is dead.

As an aside for developers, the dropping of the 'Y' value when subordinate data is added to a tag might be worth a fresh look. Although the Gedcom specification drops the 'Y' value in its numerous examples, it does not seem to make it a requirement to do so. If the 'Y' value was retained/replaced, this would probably speed up the "is dead" calculation.

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10 years 10 months ago #54 by taalia81
Replied by taalia81 on topic Privacy Issues

kiwi wrote:

taalia81 wrote: I would much prefer a way to identify and therefore correct incorrect data rather than make the change to the way the system works now.


Becky, I totally agree with you. However, I do think that the only really useful solution for that would be to actually include such warnings on the edit / add window as the dates are being entered. Having them as semi-permanent warnings on the completed individual page, as Greg suggested, I don't think really works, particularly for admins accepting changes other users have made.


Absolutely agree. My ultimate preference is for no change, but if a change must be made then I hope it is to identify errors rather than to make the 1 DEAT Y mandatory.

kiwi wrote: For myself, I am satisfied webtrees already has all the tools I need to recognise these rare errors. What I do find though is that it is sometimes hard to see exactly where the error (or perhaps "anomaly") causing a living person to be displayed comes from. For that reason, and being impatient, I have created my own add-on module to help with that (and nothing more). It tells me what the current privacy status of each individual is in a discrete sidebar element, and adds a brief narrative explaining why. If anyone else finds such a tool useful it is available at kiwitrees.net/simpl-add-ons/?did=16

This interests me a lot. I have never implemented a none standard module in webtrees (or PGV) but this might be worth looking at.

kiwi wrote: Finally, I would like to add my appreciation to StuartG for raising this discussion. I do agree it is an important issue. I may not agree with Stuart's solution, but that does not detract from the value of the debate.


I would also like to thank Stuart. It has helped me formalise my own opinion on recording basic facts which I was previously unsure of but hearing other people's methodology's has been really interesting

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10 years 10 months ago #55 by StuartG
Replied by StuartG on topic Privacy Issues
It seems like this discussion might be drawing to a close and that I should post a summary for the benefit of all. I would encourage anyone who has a point of view and hasn't made a posting to do so.

In the meantime kiwi, clearly having an interest in this discussion topic, has put some effort into producing an add-on to assist in locating the underlying data error that is causing living people to be made public. I quote part of his recent posting:

What I do find though is that it is sometimes hard to see exactly where the error (or perhaps "anomaly") causing a living person to be displayed comes from. For that reason, and being impatient, I have created my own add-on module to help with that (and nothing more). It tells me what the current privacy status of each individual is in a discrete sidebar element, and adds a brief narrative explaining why. If anyone else finds such a tool useful it is available at kiwitrees.net/simpl-add-ons/?did=16


I, too, commend and thank kiwi for his work on this. As I cannot yet upgrade to 1.4.1 I ask has anyone taken up Kiwi's offer and tried it out? Although kiwi's add-on does not address the underlying problem, it appears it may provide sufficient support that extra work by the other developers will not be necessary, especially as the other suggested solutions do not appear to be wholeheartedly supported.

Stuart
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10 years 10 months ago #56 by kiwi
Replied by kiwi on topic Privacy Issues
Stuart

I think Greg is still working on his proposal for a warning system as well.

As I cannot yet upgrade to 1.4.1

Really - is there a problem we can help with (perhaps in a new discussion)? There are some media related issues to be aware of, but otherwise there's nothing difficult about the upgrade.

By the way - although I do state the add-on is for "1.4.1+" I believe it will work fine on 1.3.2 and 1.4.0. I just never test add-ons on out-of-date versions :-)

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10 years 10 months ago #57 by StuartG
Replied by StuartG on topic Privacy Issues
Thanks Nigel for your advice and concern. The problem for me to upgrade is primarily convincing my son to stop programming for his clients and to spend a little time to transfer the little tweaks he has done for me in webtrees to the new version. It could be that he has more concern for his clients than for his father's interest in family history! :-))) I have done all that is necessary regarding the media requirements, at least I understand that, but I have no skills whatsoever in PHP. I will give your add-on a go on my 1.3.2 if I get the time. I will certainly let you know if I do, especially if it does what I think it does.

Stuart
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10 years 10 months ago #58 by ToyGuy
Replied by ToyGuy on topic Privacy Issues
@Stuart - If you did the tweaks on an SVN and used your client, you could update and auto merge the changes.

Santa Stephen the Fabled Santa
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10 years 10 months ago #59 by StuartG
Replied by StuartG on topic Privacy Issues
Thanks stephen for your advice and assistance. I will wait until Andrew gets time, as he likes to ensure that any changes he makes does not impact elsewhere on the code. He also likes to keep a record of his changes, using SVN I think. I would not know where to start doing any of that.

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10 years 10 months ago - 10 years 10 months ago #60 by StuartG
Replied by StuartG on topic Privacy Issues
SUMMARY OF DISCUSSION

My thanks to everyone who has posted to this discussion.

The words expressed in this summary are the conclusions I have drawn and may not be in accordance with how others have comprehended the postings made.

The Problem.

It is possible to have a living person with no data entry errors, made viewable by the public due to a data entry error in another closely related person.

The reason for the problem.

Most Users do not add a 1 DEAT Y tag to individuals assumed to be dead, yet expect living individuals to be hidden from the public. It was therefore necessary to have a setting (MAX_ALIVE) that assumed individuals were dead after xxx years from birth. It was also necessary to write the function, "is dead", to examine all individuals to determine if that person was dead and therefore could be made public. Normal database management techniques had to be abandoned for various reasons, system performance being the major reason, resulting in the unavoidable potential for living people to become visible to the public.

How "is dead" determines death.

In essence, "is dead" goes through the following steps:
  • If the person has a DEAT event, they are dead.
  • Otherwise, if the person has any dated event older than what MAX_ALIVE determines, they are dead.
  • Otherwise, the code moves on to the parents, spouses, children and grandchildren, adding or subtracting various numbers (number of years) to MAX_ALIVE to determine if the subject person is dead. The person is considered dead if any date is found in these records using the MAX_ALIVE setting that would logically mean the person is dead.
  • Otherwise, they are alive and hidden from the public.
The Solution

There is no solution preventing living people being made visible to the public that is acceptable to most Forum members.

The problem could be solved by requiring Users to enter a 1 DEAT Y tag for everyone assumed to be dead. There is substantial opposition to this solution. This results in the problem remaining.

Ameliorating Action

Any ameliorating action requires work by the developers and some Forum members have expressed the view that the efforts of the developers are better spent elsewhere.

There are a number of Users who would support some sort of warning being displayed preferably at the time of entering or accepting data or at the top of the Individual page when "is dead" has calculated that there may be data errors in related family members affecting that individual. Any warning is preferably to be visible to Managers only and be unobtrusive.

fisharebest has made many comments and suggestions and is apparently working on some sort of compromise solution.

kiwi has developed an alternative warning system, outside of webtrees here:

I have created my own add-on module to help with that (and nothing more). It tells me what the current privacy status of each individual is in a discrete sidebar element, and adds a brief narrative explaining why. If anyone else finds such a tool useful it is available at kiwitrees.net/simpl-add-ons/?did=16


There is one suggested change to the "is dead" function that is worthy of consideration by the development team and which eliminates the majority of instances of where living people can be falsely made visible. This was raised by cj_nza as per:

My view would be that if dates are available for an individual, use them. If no dates are available only then attempt to place the individual in time by evaluating the immediate family members.


This change would not be difficult nor time consuming to implement (see below) and it would totally prevent living individuals with valid data from being visible to the public. It does nothing to prevent a living individual with no dates being made visible by incorrect data on a related family member.

If this change is considered acceptable, I could arrange for a patch to be submitted to SVN.

My special thanks go to all who have participated. It has been a very worthwhile discussion.

Stuart
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Last edit: 10 years 10 months ago by StuartG.

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