PRIVACY CONCERNS

Occasionally persons whose name are displayed in one or more of these files may have an objection on the basis that their details are private to themselves alone.

This is a valid concern, and we have been sensitive to it, but unfortunately we cannot communicate with the thousands of individuals listed who MAY be alive, so the policy has had to be, 'publish until an individual communicates his/her concern'.

There has been a small but vocal minority of NZ readers who objected to this on principle, so in the interests of avoiding conflict the policy had been changed to that of masking ALL dates of birth of persons born in 1920 or later. After running with that for a year and STILL suffering complaints the policy has been changed yet again to accommodate most situations we can imagine.

Here is the old plan, which still applies insofar as some files will still have the links as described.
PRESUMED LIVING (PRL) is the standard display for those persons with a birth date of 1920 or later, including children of 18 years or less. If you find your name has this link you can email us with authority to unmask for YOURSELF and SPOUSE. Of course, now the dates are masked you can no longer recognise any possible errors...
PRIVATE: LIVING (PRIVATE) is the display for those persons who have specifically requested masking. This may or may not include other details of marriage, or place of birth. If a child of this person who is over 18 years authorises unmasking, the parents get no say. Similarly, parents of persons who wish to be masked as PRIVATE must make their own request. 
Husband: Joe Bloggs

   Born:PRIVATE:LIVING   at: Anywhere, New Zealand  
Married:                 at:   
   Died:PRIVATE:LIVING   at: Somewhere Else, New Zealand  
 Father:William Henry (John) Bloggs
 Mother:Wilhelmina Marianne Nonbloggs
        Other Spouses: 

   Wife: Alice Gertrude Smith

   Born: 1885             at:   
   Died: 16 JUN 1950      at:   
 Father:
 Mother:
        Other Spouses: 

CHILDREN

   Name:William Gerald Bloggs
   Born: 2 OCT 1915       at:   
Married:                  at:   
   Died: 5 JUL 1986       at: Auckland, New Zealand  
Spouses: Marie Green
As you can see, in this case only the one individual is blanked. If the spouse required the same facility he/she must separately request the same privacy screen, and neither can request it for children over 18 years old. We think this is fair and accommodates the reasonable concerns of individuals yet leaves the record intact for general purposes. Any request from outsiders for the dates would be referred back to the objectee
MAORI CULTURE is another area of difficulty. It will have been noted that we refrain from listing complete Maori cemeteries, to avoid cultural conflict. Any family information may show the burial place, but in general no full listing will be made. Occasionally a problem arises due to the Maori tradition of sharing children around. If we become aware of such a situation on a private level, we do NOT publish anything beyond the apparent public record, but we do retain notes for serious researchers. Our biggest problem here is simply that we may not know (or care!) that a family is of Maori background, so if anyone has a problem in this area, please get in touch with us.
PRIVATE The person associated with this notation has specifically requested that the details remain private. Such a request usually follows a demand for removal from the listing, a siruation rarely agreed to without reason (reasons remaining off the record) as actual removal of a name breaks the thread of time. In many cases where a parent has requested removal the children are providing more details, which makes this job a little difficult.

Nevertheless some things are possible, and all it requires is a communication in good faith. We are not intending to offend any person out there; we would rather have a mechanism whereupon people can discuss matters instead of communications between solicitors...

Having said that, legal advice to hand firmly states that publishing a person's name and public relationship does NOT constitute a breach of personal privacy.


The new privacy plan is much simpler. ALL birthdates for 1920 and later (without corresponding deaths) will be masked to year only. This eliminates identity fraud.

On request the mask LIVING can be put over the date of the person concerned, as per the earlier policy. This allows for sensitive people who do not want their actual year shown.

Some requests/threats have been received regarding having the names up there at all. This was checked with legal advice, which said that publication of a name is NOT legal invasion of privacy, and in most cases the persons objecting are already listed in the public telephone book or other publications.
Accordingly such requests for removal of names will be declined, unless some compelling reason can be provided. Those who object to this policy should ask their solicitor to contact us with a legal basis for compliance.
...

ACCURACY of DATA

As stated elsewhere, the data in these pages does NOT comply with the three-sources genealogy rule. While every care has been made to check and cross-check, it is inevitable that errors exist, both minor and gross. For this we rely on YOU, the reader, to let us know about anything that is incorrect, and about any links that fail to work.
If an error or ommission embarrasses you, send us a steaming email or letter; we will correct it immediately, and publish an apology if desired. Indeed, we can only apologise beforehand if you are upset by an error, unwarrented inclusion, or by any other posted matter. As with the birthdates situation, we cannot fix something we are unaware of.
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