Adopted Children's Names Disclosed on Scotland's People

[Pheno]

Adopted children's names were disclosed on Scotland's People website https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66448432

Pheno

[ikas]

I have read the article several times and it is not clear to me what has happened. I thought adoptees had access to the register by right. Did thay allow access to the adoption register to mothers as well as adoptees?

[ruthhelen]

As I understand it, prior to the last major update of the Scotland's People website, records that had 'NRH' as the RD Name (indicating that they were records of adoptees) didn't appear in the index, but after that update, they did - until yesterday, when they were removed again.

Ruth

[ikas]

Thanks Ruth for the clarification. Surprised it was not noticed before. In that case I find the statement from the NRS very puzzling.

The spokesman said NRS had a statutory responsibility to make its registers open and searchable.
He said: "There has been no personal data breach but we have made the Information Commissioner's Office aware of the complaint raised and the action we are taking as a precautionary step while we review the way we make this information available."

[dowdstree]

There has been a notice on Scotlandspeople website stating " Certificate Ordering is currently unavailable - We Apologise for any Inconvenience caused.

Someone has boobed somewhere.

Dorrie

[Margow]

There was a rootschat discussion on 10-11 January 2023 re a 1933 Scottish birth ref. containing 'AR' with the RD name given as 'NRH'

A response by Forfarian was as follows:

NRH in that context means that the child was adopted, and AR does indeed mean Adoption Register.

The adoption certificate can be viewed in a Scotland's People Centre, but it will tell you only the child's date and country of birth and the names of the adoptive parents.

You will not be allowed to see the child's original birth certificate. Only the adopted person or someone acting on behalf and with the express written authority of the adopted person is allowed to see the original birth certificate.

Unless, that is, you already happen to know the child's birth name, in which case you can see the birth certificate in the normal way.  As it's 1933 you would have to order it to be sent to you.

I have not used it, but I understand that the adoption register comes in the form of a microfiche.

[ikas]

Thanks for the additional information.

[ITBookworm]

Chris Paton has updated his Blog and explains the situation in a bit more detail. See the link below.

https://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2023/08/scotlandspeople-provided-access-to.html?fbclid=IwAR0K1ntcaGY7WCdMeDH1g9uAv2lG8FBl8KD-JigYvg59Dg0vo7HxTmbI4Qw

sorry about the long link!

[ikas]

Great find, ITBookworm but Hmmm. I know little about the subject but Paton's update seems to imply it has always been possible to identify adoptees via the birth register. Surely not? Ruth's suggestion it has been possible only since an upgrade has gone wrong seems more realistic to me. If it's really not a data breach that I am able to identify someone I know has been adopted simply by searching for that person in SP birth index then the definition of data breach needs to be reconsidered. The fact that the original birth surname might be identified is, of course, significant but surely the privacy of adoptees has been invaded by simply being identified on the index with their adoptive surname?