Living person in Record Hints
I am shocked that a Record Hint shows a close family member's full birth details, even the maiden name of mother. They are living and quite young. I could give the link but anyone seeing this will be aware of the record.
I feel this is a serious security issue.
Is there a way to send a private message so the problem can be looked at please?
Many thanks for any help on this.
Julie
Best Answer
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@Julie Kinouchi I would like to refer you to this article in the help center that might be useful:
Can I request to remove the name of a living person from Historical Records?
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Answers
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The record custodian, not FamilySearch, is responsible for public disclosure of the records. Some states, including Texas, designate vital records of living persons as public.
What I do to keep details of living persons as private as possible is this:
- Work the hint.
- Go to source pages of the attached profiles and dismiss the flag about unfinished attachments.
All future research hints of this record are suppressed until and unless a profile is created for the person in the public tree space.
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FamilySearch's position on privacy for living individuals can appear quite baffling at times. On the one hand, IDs for the living can only be seen in private spaces, then you get situations like this - where public records of living persons are not just published, but their existence is even highlighted!
I assume the matter being discussed here refers to a hint against a deceased person, with a reference to another who is still alive. (Otherwise, there would be no issue: only the person who created the "Living" ID would be able to see the hint.) I also assume the poster is more concerned about the details being highlighted, rather than their mere publication. As already mentioned, there are many openly available records that contain "confidential" information - especially as far as the individual directly concerned would consider this detail to be private. For example, this might show an individual as being illegitimate, when they had previously indicated to friends that an adoptive couple, or perhaps grandparents, were their natural parents.
Here in the UK, our census records remain close for a 100 years, whereas I see in the US the 1950 records have been published - including data relating to a considerable amount of living persons, of course. However, in the UK, it is quite easy to find where an individual lives, who they married and what children they have / had.
Whether FamilySearch should take their privacy for the living policies beyond its current position has been carefully considered by its legal team, no doubt: especially with regard to the issue of its records covering countries across the globe, each with their own privacy legislation.
Perhaps what is more confusing is the keeping details of the living completely in private spaces - perhaps these IDs should be open to view, but with certain details automatically redacted if the record is marked "Living". The popular alternative suggestion (raised here and elsewhere) has been to allow these IDs to be viewed within a group of family members. This has been discussed regularly for many years, but I assume there remain legal difficulties in its application - especially in countries where privacy laws are far tighter than, say, in the United Kingdom or United States.
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Many thanks for answering.
This actually refers to a full birth date and place for an adult living child and maiden name of living mother. A couple of common security questions there.....
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Regardless of the option highlighted (in the article), I just don't see FamilySearch's "logic" when it comes to privacy for the living. Huge amounts of personal information appears on the website relating to the living, yet we're not even supposed to indicate (on a deceased person's pages) that they might have children that are living!
I've just been using Ancestry and was amazed at the amount of detail of living persons in its Public Trees section. If they can publish that without fear of getting into any bother with individuals or authorities, what is FamilySearch's problem here?
To clarify, I am not advocating open publication of more material on the living, just that FamilySearch can, firstly, figure out a way of being consistent within its own programs and, secondly, accept legal constraints cannot be an acceptable explanation for restricting information (specifically in viewing "Living" IDs) when other organisations seem to have no such problems in sharing such detail.
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Ancestry is just that Ancestry, why living relatives need to be on this site is beyond me. I and my parents are alive, but their name and details are not entered, just Mom and Dad. It botches my cousins family tree as she used my moms names and now on her end on her account the tree is wonky. But SHE known's how I'm related to her, here computer doesn't need to know this.
Same with FamilySearch et al. When you enter your living relatives names on any website, you are sharing their legal name, birth date etc with a company and a bunch of IT guys. Any website can be hacked and computer glitch sometimes. Your very own computer can be hacked. There is nothing wrong with excluding the living from your and other's computer. It's more creative and personal to have paper family tree.
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I love that first sentence! I agree wholeheartedly.
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@BJC1234 There are very important reasons to have living people in Family Tree. They are visible only to you, so you needn't be concerned about privacy. The living people that are very important for you to add are those that bridge from you to your deceased ancestors (whose profiles are public). If you have living parents, for example, but deceased grandparents, you would add your parents, then connect your parents to your deceased grandparents. Then your tree would be complete. You don't need to add any details about your parents in this example. As you suggested, you can name them simply Mom and Dad with no legal name or birth information if you'd like. That's entirely your choice if you have concerns about data privacy.
But adding those living persons to bridge to the deceased ancestors makes several features work that would otherwise not help you at all. An example is the ubiquitous "View Relationship" buttons on person profiles and in other places throughout Family Tree. That can only show you how you are related to them if you have connected to your deceased ancestors, which usually requires adding some living people. Features such as Relatives at RootsTech, or Relatives Around Me (on the mobile Tree app) rely on these connections as well. Record hints for your relatives can only be provided if the system knows who your relatives are.
Whatever your cousin may have done when she entered your parents' names wouldn't make her tree "wonky" unless she made some mistake in the relationships she created. The details she put on her private copy of those profiles would make no difference at all. But unless she marked those profiles deceased (a big no-no for living people), what she does with them shouldn't concern you.
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