An interesting case today of a person seeking his father, of whom they know
only the pronunciation of his first name and the fact that he studied a
certain subject at a certain Welsh institution in the late 70's.
As the federal body, we hold all degree, diploma and certificate results
for all Welsh HE Institutions except Glamorgan, since 1893 but obviously not
all on computer. We also until fairly recently printed up all results into
book form and circultaed them to institutions who no doubt proudly placed
copies in their libraries. All degree results have regularly been published
in the Western Mail newspaper. So the basic information is in the public
domain.
My question therefore is how much help can we give this person ?
My own first reaction was to think none at all as he is a third party and at
most our policy says we only confirm awards made on the basis of 'Did Joe
Smith get a BSc in Physics in 1997 ? ' - yes. And no other data. And the
need to protect our data subjects from fishing expeditions, of which we had
some experience during the Iranian revolution and subsequent war with Iraq,
where embassies were attempting to locate students to persuade [or coerce]
them into returning to fight.
But looking at this case has made me think that if the data is already in
the public domain, can we help the person from our records with a list of
people graduating sometime in the 70's with a degree in the right subject
and from the right institution ? After all, he could go to the Western Mail
archives or a library and leaf through the old copies ......
Owen Parry
Pennaeth Cyfrifiadura Gweinyddol/
Head of Administrative Computing
Prifysgol Cymru/
University of Wales
Tel: (029) 2038 2656 Ffacs/Fax: (029) 2039 6040
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