 |
| Image of IJGS Public Records Access Alerts List sign up page, please see body of post for working link |
Continuing with our ongoing theme of records access, knowing
what is occurring in this regard is critical – knowledge allows us to reap the
benefits of new/better access and/or lets us know when our voices maybe needed
to ensure continued or better access to records than we may already have.
To this end, we can now excitedly
announce the following news from the International Association of Jewish
Genealogical Societies (IAJGS). When you
sign up, if you are doing so as an individual and not as a representative of an
organization, please list Upfront with NGS or NGS as your affiliation.
In February 2013, the International Association of
Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS), started a new announcement list,
the IAJGS Records Access Alert.
At that time it was decided to open the Alert
only to subscribers that were members of IAJGS member societies and any
person subscribed to the JewishGen Discussion Group or Special Interest Group
(SIG) hosted by or owned by JewishGen. At the IAJGS 2015 October Board
meeting it was decided to open the registration to the Alert to anyone who is interested in records access.
Registration and a listing of your organization
affiliation (genealogy society, etc.) may now go to: http://lists.iajgs.org/mailman/listinfo/records-access-alerts.
You will receive an email response that you have to reply to or the
subscription will not be finalized. [Editor’s note – if you do not reply to
this email, you will NOT be subscribed] [Editor’s note – you can select to get
a daily digest mode vs real-time posts]
For those who may wish to access the archives of the
IAJGS Records Access Alerts, go to: http://lists.iajgs.org/mailman/private/records-access-alerts/.
You must be registered to access the archives.
As this is an announcement list, you may not post
comments as you may on a discussion list. However, we do want to hear from the
list subscribers worldwide if they know of public records access issues or have
something relevant to add about the postings. Please send notices and comments
to the following email address: [email protected]. Where
appropriate, the list owner will issue a posting. Alerts posted to this
new service will be made only when there is something of an important nature
regarding public records access; therefore, do not expect this alert on a
routinely daily or weekly basis.
We look forward to having you subscribe.
Jan Meisels Allen
Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee
I
have been interested in the IAJGS
Records Access Alert since its formation. Previously I had to wait for
others to share this invaluable information with me, now I can get it direct! The Legal Genealogist recently posted about
this service, Staying alert.
Recently there have been several
recent posts involving European records access that family historians around
the world need an awareness of since they could impact non-Europeans
researching in the directly impacted countries.
Over the next couple of weeks, I will be re-posting (with permission
from Jan Meisels Allen, Chairperson, IAJGS PUblic Records Access Monitoring Committee, [email protected]) a few of those posts to bring them to your
attention. Otherwise, please do sign up
(as described above) to receive future posts directly and to access the list archive.
+++++++++++++++
Privacy advocates vs. First
Amendment rights won in the European Court of Justice (EUCJ) when the Court
ruled on October 6 that the international agreement permitting digital
data transfer between the United
States U.S. United
States United
States Europe rely on data found on search engines, this
decision affects the genealogist in their research opportunities. The decision
may be read at: http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2015-10/cp150117en.pdf
The “safe harbor” issue is one that
has continued to be debated between the EU members and was an issue in
finalizing the Data Protection Regulations which espouse “the right to be
forgotten” and “the right to be erased”. The UK and Ireland are the EU
countries that many US companies have based their EU operations as they were
presumed to be more “liberal” in their data privacy determinations than
countries such as Germany and France. The Court’s decision adversely affects
the EU’s proposal of a single market known as “one stop shopping”.
Companies such as Facebook and Google may decide to store
their EU citizens data in the EU. The EUCJ is the highest court in the EU and
the decision may not be appealed. Their ruling noted that the 500 million EU
citizens did not have the right to bring litigation in the US courts if they believed their privacy had
been infringed by the US
The case before the EUCJ started
with Max Schremms an Austrian citizen, who litigated against Facebook
when he accused Facebook of compiling its users’ personal data in violation of
Austrian and EU legislation. Mr. Schremms Facebook data is transferred from
Facebook’s Irish subsidiary ((whose EU headquarters are in Ireland ) ) to servers in the United States where the information is
processed, He first brought suit in Ireland
against the Irish Data Protection Commissioner stating that Facebook transfers
the data to the US
This decision continues with the
debate between the US adherence of first amendment rights of free speech vs.
the EU priority of individual privacy prevailing and the trend by EU courts
stating their “right to be forgotten” requirements are global to search engines
not just within the EU.
Original url:
Original url:
The issues of the Schremms’ case,
proposed Data Protection Regulation, “safe harbor” and “right to be forgotten”
have all been discussed in previous postings on the IAJGS Public Records Access
Alert. They can be found in the archives at http://lists.iajgs.org/mailman/private/records-access-alerts/ . You must be a registered subscriber to
access the archives. To register go to: http://lists.iajgs.org/mailman/listinfo/records-access-alerts and follow the instructions to enter
your email address, full name and which JGS/JHS/SIG/JewishGen is your
affiliation You will receive an email response that you have to
reply to or the subscription will not be finalized.
Jan Meisels Allen
Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records
Access Monitoring Committee
+++++++++++++++
Related follow-up post ...
While the EU and US have
been negotiating for around two years to update the “safe harbor” framework
following Edward Snowden’s disclosure of National Security agency spying, the EUCJ
decision made the negotiations more urgent. European Union Justice
Commissioner, Vera Jourová announced last week that there is an agreement
in principle, between the US US
The EU Commission will
release soon an explanation on the consequences of the Schremm’s EUCJ decision
on international data transfers but it will not replace the Data Protection
authorities upholding and enforcing data protection rules.
Until the final version of
the General Data Protection Regulation is determined, we don’t know if the
privacy issues will relate only to living persons or also to deceased which
affect genealogists’ access to vital records. As mentioned in the Jerusalem
Post article reported on this announcement list on October 29, some
Holocaust research access is being hampered as some European archivists are
interpreting the proposed regulation to cover deceased or holocaust victims records.
As I have written before
there is a major conflict between the EU fundamental right of privacy and the
US First Amendment Right of Freedom of the Press.
Jan Meisels Allen
Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
copyright ©
National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington,
Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NGS does not
imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this
blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not
necessarily reflect the view of NGS.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Republication
of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial
purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us
where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is
required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for
commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to [email protected]. All
republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the
copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Think your
friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post
interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with
NGS posts or subscribe!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Suggestions
for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please
send any suggested topics to [email protected]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unless indicated
otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Want to
learn more about interacting with the blog, please read Hyperlinks, Subscribing and Comments -- How to Interact with
Upfront with NGS Blog posts!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No comments:
Post a Comment