Public issues

Birth, death and marriage registers

Updated: 14 Nov 2007
Birth-death-and-marriage-registers-hero

Introduction

A sweeping plan to restrict access to some of New Zealand's oldest public records is revised at the last minute.

Proposed changes to the birth, death and marriage registers had some opposition groups claiming a government over-reaction. We take a closer look at the proposal, subsequent changes, and the problem of balancing open access with privacy.

Case study - finding Paul

I've met Paul Smith - my half-brother - once. There's a photo of us standing together, taken when I was six and Paul was about nine. Earlier this month I tracked down Paul's family through the birth, death and marriage (BDM) registers.

My brother's name is pretty common. Type "P Smith" into the White Pages and you'll find 667 different entries. Google "Paul Smith" and you'll find a rugby league player of the same name.

To find my brother, I needed his full name and date of birth.

I pulled his birth certificate at the registry in the hope that I'd then be able to track his address through the electoral rolls, which are available at the public library.

It costs $20 to get a printout of someone's birth certificate - and anyone can do this by filling in the forms (available online at www.bdm.govt.nz). The most difficult bit is picking when the person was born. The registry staff search either side of the year you choose, but if they have to go beyond that it costs $1 for each additional year.

The job becomes easier if you can walk into the BDM offices in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch.

I went to the Wellington office armed only with Paul's name and a vague idea of when he was born. I used the microfiched index to uncover what I thought was his full name and date of birth free of charge. I then paid $20 for a printout of Paul's birth certificate.

It turns out that Paul's last name isn't "Smith" after all. It's "Kingston-Smith". The unusual double-barrelled last name makes Paul easier to find online through Google and Face Book. I typed "Kingston-Smith" into both and an IT manager named John Kingston-Smith appeared. John's my uncle.

The hardest bit of finding Paul is still to come. I have to pluck up the courage to call ...

Proposed amendments

Using the microfiche to access records

The birth, death and marriage (BDM) registers have been shrouded in "practical obscurity" through much of their life. Anyone could access the registers, but it usually required going to the registry in person.

It's now a lot easier - you can request a copy of the information by email or phone. And once you've got hold of someone's details there are many things you can do with them - both honest and dishonest.

Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff notes: "The opportunities for secondary use and misuse of personal information held on public registers have multiplied."

The BDMRR Bill

The government proposed wide-sweeping changes to how New Zealand handled its BDM information earlier this year.

Some of the amendments aimed to tighten access to the registers; others updated the governing Act to reflect improvements in technology as well as social changes. The alterations formed "The Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill" (BDMRR).

The BDMRR Bill set out to restrict access to:

  • Birth records less than 100 years old.
  • Marriage records less than 80 years old.
  • Death records where the person died less than 50 years ago (or where the dead person was born less than 80 years ago).

The BDMRR Bill stated: "Restricting public access to the registers is likely to make it more difficult for certain types of identity fraud to be committed."

Increased penalties for offences - such as a $10,000 fine for illegal access to, or distributing information from, a register - underscored the changes.

What happens overseas?

In her submission to the Government Administration Committee, Marie Shroff pointed out all the Australian states, 10 of the 13 Canadian provinces, and the great majority of US states had restricted access to their registers.

The UK maintains open registers; but the Privacy Commission points out that there's less information recorded on those registers than in New Zealand.

In the UK, the General Register Office will soon begin releasing information on the death registers to the Police, government agencies and private companies. It believes that greater broadcasting of this information will reduce the number of fraudsters using the identities of the deceased.

In New Zealand, the Registrar-General will be able to disclose death information to government agencies and private companies under the BDMRR Bill.

Opposition to the changes

Some opposition parties, genealogists, historians and media thought the changes to the registers were an over-reaction. Many submissions opposing the amendments were put to the Select Committee.

One of the main points of contention in the debate on the BDMRR Bill was the "low incidence" of identity theft in New Zealand (see "Fraud in God's Own", below).

Some journalists held deeper concerns. Karl du Fresne said:

"The bigger issue is that we live in one of the most open, transparent democracies in the world and any attack on that transparency has to be resisted. This [the BDMRR Bill] doesn't just concern journalists - it should concern anyone with an interest in democracy and freedom of information."

Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff broadly supported the original BDMRR Bill.

In a submission to the Government Administration Committee, she argued that the government must be clear about the purposes of the registers - and use information gathered only for those purposes - or in instances where there is a legitimate public interest in access.

Fraud in God's Own

When some media claimed there were "eight incidences of identity fraud in 2006" they took into account only identity theft for passports. The most frequent examples of identity theft - misused cheques and fraudulent benefit claims - fall under the category of "fraud".

Chris Budge

It's hard to estimate exactly how much identity theft goes on in New Zealand.

Forensic computing expert Chris Budge (pictured right) says Australian studies estimate that a quarter of reported frauds to the Australian federal police involve the use of false identities.

He believes that identity theft in New Zealand is also an issue:

"The fabric of our identity system is primarily our full name and date of birth. In the absence of these details, such things as postal address, account number and mother's maiden name become important. With name and date of birth, there's the potential to fool susceptible customer-service staff."

Commenting on the original BDMRR Bill, Chris Budge said that it "may assist in mitigating the risks faced by some potential victims - but criminals will very likely find another way to locate and exploit victims."

New proposal

Internal Affairs Minister Rick Barker first presented the BDMRR Bill to Parliament on 28 February 2007 and it went before the Government Administration Select Committee in May 2007.

Mr Barker has now sent a letter to the Select Committee withdrawing the most controversial element of the original Bill - restrictions on access to the registers.

He has proposed that:

  • People wanting certificates and printouts from the registers must present adequate ID first.
  • An "access register" be created so that people can find out who has accessed their records.
  • Individuals be able to request that their records are not disclosed to the public.

Controversial amendments

Some controversial amendments haven't been addressed by the minister's new proposals:

  • The Green party opposed the amendment that requires a birth to be registered by both parents. The Greens pointed out that some women won't want the name of the biological father registered: "One [situation] is where the woman is in a same-sex relationship, wants her partner to share parental responsibilities, but wants to conceive naturally rather than by assisted reproductive technology."

  • The Privacy Commissioner wants to ensure that private companies receive accurate death information so that people are correctly identified and not removed from databases by mistake. She's conscious that there's a risk of incorrectly matching deceased and living people.

Who uses the registers?

The birth, death and marriage (BDM) registers are a source of useful information for many people. And a number of legitimate users of the registers may have been hindered by the BDMRR Bill:

Historian Dr Geoff Rice's book
  • People who study history and genealogy find BDM information essential to their research. It's unique in that it provides records of ordinary people.

    Historian Dr Geoff Rice recently wrote a book on New Zealand's 1918 flu epidemic (pictured right); he used the death register to track the extent of the epidemic. Historians were concerned that more modern studies of a similar nature would be impossible.

  • Journalists sometimes use the registers to verify facts. If a reporter thinks that a subject is lying about a family relationship, then the registers can be a means of proving or disproving a story.

  • Separated family members can track lost ones through the registers (see Case study - finding Paul). For 120 years, the Salvation Army has run a service that helps people find missing relatives. The service relies on the registers to track some people.


Stories in the registers

The births, deaths and marriages registers might seem like dull registration files, but they can tell very personal stories.

  • Information held on the death register includes primary and secondary causes of death (for example suicide, syphilis, or cancer), place of death (for example a mental hospital), place of burial, and ethnicity (since 1995).

  • The birth register can also yield interesting stories. A printout of a birth register contains a person's full name, place of birth, parents' names, siblings born to the same parents, and the parents' marriage date. You can see how old someone's mother was when she gave birth, and the father's identity (in most instances), and whether they were married.


Our view

  • We're pleased that the amendments (particularly those that restrict access to the births, deaths and marriages registers) were publicly debated.

    Historians, journalists and the public had the opportunity to make submissions before the BDMRR Bill went before the Select Committee. Internal Affairs Minister Rick Barker has subsequently proposed changes to the BDMRR Bill.

  • The new proposal (allowing individuals to request that their records are not disclosed to the public) seems a reasonable compromise between open access and privacy. But we wonder whether it might still hamper some historical studies.


More information


Newspaper articles

  • New Zealand Herald "Assault on right to know" (21 May 2007)
  • Dominion Post "Births, deaths and other secrets" (20 April 2007)


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Report by Luke Harrison