Are you comfortable with the way personal data is handled in family group trees?
I am uncomfortable with the way Family Group trees handle personal data. It feels wrong to me. I can't encourage my family to participate in something I feel uncomfortable with. Does anyone else have concerns?
What feels wrong? I am adding personal data for people that have not given consent and sharing it in a group that they may not even be a part of. They don't have a chance to opt-in or opt-out of sharing their personal data.
They have lost control of their personal data. They can't even completely delete the information as it remains in the change log. It seems wrong to me to collect personal data about someone without their knowledge or consent, especially when there is not a real "need to know" and the data will be there forever.
It also feels wrong to teach our children it is OK to share personal information in a shared space about themselves and others.
Family Group Trees feels more like a social media site and could just present a user profile with just a name (or contact name) to the family group and not the personal data. When a person joins a family group he could "claim" his profile and opt-in to share personal data, if he wants to.
Family Groups should be a way to connect families. They are all living and presumably close family members. It should seem natural to talk to the family member and ask for their data, if you want it, and store it in your private space to continue to protect their privacy.
By adding the personal data in the family group, it takes away the opportunity to add the data yourself, build your own tree and build a relationship with your living relative.
Sharing memories in family groups is a great way to connect without explicitly sharing personal data. And yes, just as much personal data can be shared via memories as via the profile, but it is not a form sitting out there begging to be filled in and it is not automatically filled in when copying a person to the family group tree. (And hopefully, memories will be shared using respect for privacy.)
Does anyone else share these concerns?
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When creating a family group it specifically states:
By joining a Group and sharing personal information from your FamilyTree within that Group, you confirm that you have the right and/or permission to share any personal information that you provide access to within the group, including the personal information of other living individuals.
And you have to check a box that you agree to this. If you and all in your group abide by this, it would answer the majority of your concerns.
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Regarding your other concern:
By adding the personal data in the family group, it takes away the opportunity to add the data yourself, build your own tree and build a relationship with your living relative.
There are those that can paint, and there are those of us that can only admire the artwork of others. It seems that most families have a couple of researchers and a lot of others who are thrilled to see information about family members but would never create a private living space of their own. Family Groups gives that second group access to the work of the first group without being forced to repeat over and over and over research that has already been done. While Rembrandt may have a different relationship to one of his paintings than I do, I can have have a valuable relationship to that painting without ever picking up a brush.
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I get that the legalese about permission covers FamilySearch if my personal data is shared inappropriately, but it doesn't make me feel any more comfortable or have any more confidence or trust that Family Groups will respect and protect my data.
Users generally click through user agreements and pay little attention to them afterwards. Family Groups makes it easy to copy personal data into a family group by encouraging me to copy from my tree. The personal data in my tree may have originally come from church membership records and all I really wanted to share was memories, but the copy option copies everything.
This is a forum to gather feedback, and my question was really meant for all users since I think the feedback is valuable information for Family Groups. I am sharing my honest feedback and feelings and wonder if I am alone in this feeling or if others share the same feelings.
So once again, I'm asking for honest feedback: Do you feel comfortable with the way personal data is shared in Family Group Trees? Why or why not?
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I am comfortable in sharing basic data about my family with my direct family, i.e. my children. I need them to continue this work with ease after I am deceased. This is a great way of making that happen.
If I was not comfortable with it, I wouldn't choose to use it; I would not join such a group.
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That was my first thought — just don't use it if I'm not comfortable with the way my personal data is handled. But that doesn't really work. Even if I choose not to create or join a family group, there is nothing from preventing my well-intentioned sister from creating a family group for her children, copying her tree over (including our siblings and parents) and sharing my personal data in a space where I didn't give permission. (Yes, even though she checked the legalese to begin with.) She invites just her children and none of her siblings. Now my personal data is shared in a family group with a form just begging to be filled out with more of my personal data.
I don't know who's in the group. She may have a child I don't consider trustworthy and wouldn't want him to have access to my data.
Once my personal data is included in a family group, I assume it would most likely be there forever. I can see cases where some family members are no longer trustworthy and I would want to remove my personal data, but my data may be in a group that I don't even have access to.
There just doesn't seem to be a good option for me to protect my personal data or opt-out of family groups.
And yes, there are other ways my personal data can get out, but the work flow from FamilySearch is create a tree, copy your living into it, and invite others. I can see well-intentioned people following those steps without really thinking about personal privacy issues even after checking the appropriate boxes.
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While I haven't had any issues with the information shared in groups I'm a part of (they're all close family), you do bring up some good points. Because the information shared is harder to keep track of, I hope FamilySearch will implement ways to truly delete personal information for all users if needed. It could also be good to give a bit more warning about trying to be conservative on what personal data you share.
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I think it might help to break this topic into three parts to analyze more carefully (1) accumulating the data in Family Search Trees private area, (2) copy INTO Family Groups and (3) copy OUT OF Family Group. The concerns mentioned occur in all three, but perhaps to different degrees.
Family Search Trees: FS has provided the ability to accumulate personal data about living people from many sources for a long time now. Creation of Family Groups does nothing to change this. Although for some commercial purposes the law mandates the ability to request deletion of data, there is no such ability to do it from governmental or personal records of others. Just this evening I started to copy from paper records that have existed for years, some I created, some I have inherited.
If family members had asked me for copies of these, I would have provided them. My family knows I do family history, and no-one has ever asked me not to do it. If they did, then I should respect that and not pass it on. If I want to treat them with respect and protect the relationship from potential damage from unexpected discovery, I should ask how they feel about it. The policy statement above clearly states this.
INTO FGT. When I copy information into a Family Tree, I have passed that information on to others. I can see who I have given access to that information, and perhaps I retain a bit of influence over the information. If I do not have "the right and/or permission to share" then I should not copy it into a Family Group Tree, just like I should not have provided a paper copy.
OUT OF FGT. If I gave paper copies to others, I am not in control of who they might pass them onto. (Similarly I also do not control who can access any public governmental records). But the shared nature of the FGT means there is greater potential for accumulation of more data, and perhaps greater accuracy (which may be a good thing or not depending on one's view). The nature of the group has potential to remove the personal connection between individuals, and understanding of sensitivities.
It seems perhaps consideration should be given to all three of these "levels" if you will when addressing this issue.
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Administrators can somewhat control this by using the Rules feature of the Edit Group. You can create rules to help the members of your group remember what data is private and how to be wise in the use of that data.
Once you add rules in the Edit Group overlay, those rules appear just below ,where every member of the group can see them and refer back to them.
As an administrator, if you find a member of your group abusing the privilege of being a part of your group, you can remove them.
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