Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Database Registration and privacy acts
Organization: ClariNet Communications Corp.
Date: Tue, 14 May 91 04:04:27 GMT
Message-ID: <1991May14.040427.10453@looking.on.ca>

There have been a number of interesting points raised recently in
news.admin and comp.risks that EFF hangers-on might want to look at.
They involve some British laws about databases.

In one case a site has queried the database registry office about what
databases must be registered.   (Apparently the law requires that if you
keep a collection of information about people on a computer, you have to
register it, and other laws allow people to look at the data)

They kept asking if X should be registered and always got yes.  Examples
of X:
	The uucp maps and alias databases for sites and users
	Hostname databases for the internet

And speculation was that you would also have to register
	The /etc/passwd file and equivalents
	All E-mail mailing lists
	and more.

Thus creating a typical net site might involve the registration (presumably
with fees and paperwork) of a significant number of databases.

----------

In comp.risks, comment has been made that some institutions, fearful of the
laws which govern computer databases -- including a possible right-to-see
law -- have been deliberately keeping their databases on paper.  That means
processing the information on comptuer, but in the end printing it and erasing
the electronic records forthwith.   Included were Newspaper obituary
databases, and academic record databases.


All I can say is *sigh*.   And perhaps "if databases are outlawed, only
outlaws will have databases..."
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473