Davis Halts Release of Birth and Death Data

For the last couple of years, anyone with $900 could purchase state-issued CD-ROMs listing every California birth between 1905 and 1995.

Customers included government agencies, attorneys and genealogy services, groups that regularly need the information for accepted business or legal purposes.

But at least two genealogy operations posted the information on the Internet. And that made it possible for anyone--free of charge--to access personal information about more than 24 million California natives: full name, county, date of birth and mother’s maiden name. All someone needed was a computer and Web site browser.

That has recently stirred privacy concerns and last week prompted Gov. Gray Davis to suspend the state release of birth and death indices.

He acted after a recent legislative hearing highlighted the instant availability of the birth data. “Twenty-four million-plus records and it took seconds; that’s all. It pops it right up,” said Richard Steffen, staff director for state Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), who chaired the hearing.

The matter touches on a question that has received increased attention since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: How public should certain public documents be? The birth index offers key information that would be useful to anyone interested in committing identity fraud--whether it be a petty thief or a determined terrorist.

The state Department of Health Services started providing the birth and death index CD-ROMs when it transferred the information from microfiche to electronic storage in 1999. State Registrar Michael L. Rodrian said the department was then advised that under the California Public Records Act, the data had to be available to citizens in the form in which they were maintained.

The fee reflected the cost of creating the CD-ROM: $900 for a complete birth index and $600 for the index of California deaths from 1940 through 1999.

California is one of 14 states with open birth records. They have always been available at county recorder offices and the state Office of Vital Records, and anyone can order a copy of any native Californian’s birth certificate from those sources.

The index contains only some of the information on a birth certificate but includes the mother’s maiden name, often required by banks and other institutions to access account information.

After the hearing, Steffen said, Speier’s office received more than 100 calls from people complaining that the birth index should not be available online, giving quick global access to their personal data.

One genealogy site, RootsWeb .com, removed the information, as well as similar data from Texas, a week ago. But another company, Vitalsearch of Pleasanton, intends to keep the indices on its Web site.

Steven J. Margaretic, Vitalsearch president, said most of the e-mails he has received are “begging us not to take it off and asking if we’re going to fall prey to this wave of fear started by Sen. Speier.”

Margaretic said that though he sympathizes with people’s worries, the data are a matter of public record. “We’re not going to take it off unless we’re forced to legally,” he said.

Financial institutions, he added, can guard against fraud by asking for customer identifiers not contained in public records.

Genealogists and freedom of information advocates also had reservations about removing the data from the Web.

“I understand others people’s concerns,” said Bette Kot of the California Genealogical Society Library in Oakland. “But genealogists have their concerns too. We are just hopeful they will put it back on the Internet.”

Her organization, which has 30,000 volumes of genealogical records from around the nation, bought its own CD-ROM of the California birth index. But it is organized differently from the one on the Roots site, Kot said, and is not as easy to use.

Terry Francke, general counsel of the California First Amendment Coalition, warned that “before any kind of panic sets in to either start removing public records from the Internet or forbid any transaction on the Internet,” officials need to know if the information is being abused.

“I suspect most identity theft happens in the old-fashioned, low-tech way,” he added.

In an executive order issued Wednesday, Gov. Davis cited privacy and identity theft concerns in directing the state health department to stop selling the birth and death indices for 45 days and, during that period, review the circumstances--if any--under which the data might be released in the future.

Rodrian said he is consulting with legal counsel and did not know what he would recommend to the governor.

Delton Atkinson, executive director of the National Assn. of Public Health Statistics and Information Systems in Washington, D.C., said his group has long had concerns about the misuse of public birth data.

“I understand genealogical needs. But there has to be something better than simply putting it out there for anybody and everybody,” said Atkinson, whose organization represents state health statistics centers.

Open record laws covering vital statistics predate the Internet, he added. “We’ve got to pay greater attention to the access to documents by unauthorized persons,” he said.