Letter of the County Privacy Laws Commissioners.
NRW AZ.1148/02 (published by kind permission of the C.P.L.
official NRW, dated 01.08.2002 with express reference to their
position i.e., that it only applies to North Rhine Westphalia).
It is to be assumed that a similar law prevails for the counties
of Rhineland-Pfalz and Hessen.
By reading the Data Protection Laws, one can only presume as to
how far it is possible to publish data of a third party on the
Internet. This depends first and foremost if said third party is
still alive or already dead.
Privacy Law regulations protect the individual, (who by
definition does research in personal data which is thus
protected)
This data is either of a personal or factual nature and related
to a definite or intended person. (Paragraph 3, sentence 1 of the
Privacy Law of North-Rhine-Westphalia, DSG NRW, Federal Privacy
Law BDSG).
“Naturals” are all living persons; dates of the
deceased, however, are not covered by data protection. -
Exceptions, in which also the details of deceased persons are
protected, can be established by a few special regulations, such
as “a protection need” see (Archive:
Personenstandregister) or in the manner of the data (for
instance: health dates). If none of these exceptions are given,
data of deceased persons can safely be published on the Internet,
without breaking any Data Protection Laws.
For example: You may publish essential data of a deceased person
on the Internet, such as name, birth/marriage dates, provided
they were obtained from either newspaper articles, grave
inscriptions, official publications, town announcements, church
letters etc., as the result of your genealogical research.
Should you, however, wish to publish data of a living individual
on the Internet, it will only be admissable if regulations allow,
or if the person concerned has given his/her consent.
Although it states in Paragraph 1 sentence 2, No.3; 27 paragraph
1 sentence 2 BDSG, that the BDSG has no application if the survey
process or use of the dates are solely for personal or informal
work, or, if in the beginning, these genealogical researches were
for purely personal use, these would be,(together with the
application on the Internet) exceeded.
By these means, the data is made accessible to an unlimited
audience worldwide for exclusively private utilisation.
Thus the regulations of the BDSG are being adhered to.
According to article 28, paragraph 1, No.3 BDSG, one is able to
show personal data of a third party on the Internet, if dates are
generally accessible, unless the interest of the person/s
affected outweighs the reason for publication of your research.
Requirements are, that the dates came from sources freely
available to the public.
Should these requirements not be available, publication on the
Internet is only allowed if consent from the third party has been
obtained.
These requirements have been set out in aticle 4a BDSG as
follows:
(1) The consent is only effective if freely given by the person
it does concern. He must give reasons why he objects to the
material not to be shown on the Internet. Consent must be given
in writing. Should consent or other declarations have been given
in writing, this must be shown.
(2) In the realm of academic/scientific research, special
circumstances may apply. Paragraph 1, line 3. In this case, the
reference in paragraph 1, sentence 2, should the language in the
research papers give cause for concern, a record of this should
be kept.
(3) As far as to special kinds of personal data raised, processed
or used (section3, paragraph 9), the consent given must refer
expressly to this data.
I hope I have been of some help to you with these listings. I
will of course be available should you have any questions.
I wish you every success in your interesteing research project.
Kind regards
On behalf: signed.Jutta Katernberg
County Privacy Law Official for Data Protection NRW,
Reichsstrasse 43, 40217 Düsseldorf
Tel:0211-38424-O, Fax: 0211-38424-10, E-mail:
datenschutz@lfd.nrw.de
http://www.lfd.nrw.de