Marie Georges, Dane szczególnie chronione a archiwa, w: Archeion, t. 109, wyd. NDAP, Warszawa 2006, ss. 64-71
"Marie G e o r g e s, Data under particular protection and the archives. Starting in the 70’s, two public needs
appeared on the two Atlantic shores: the need for the transparency of the State resulting from the idea to control
the proceedings and decisions of authorities, and the need for the protection of privacy. Finally, three forms of
legal regulations were adopted, usually taking the form of acts:
– on the freedom of information, that is the access to public documents, with exceptions due to the respect
of privacy and confidential information described in other acts,
– on the protection of personal data (in France, the Act on IT and Liberties), which apart from direct
protection of privacy takes the regard of those guarantees in relation to digitally expressed data capable
of immediate processing,
– on archives, which is mainly focused on uniform standards of public archives management, with
simultaneous guarantees of confidentiality in the case of specific periods of preservation and general
access for research purposes.
France needed 12 months (1978–1979) to adopt those laws, which allowed to maintain the balance between
privacy and transparency. Further regulations were adopted to improve their coherence.
In 1981, the Council of Europe adopted Convention 108 on data protection which defined the general
protection system in relation to all data, with emphasis on the protection of “particularly protected” data against
discrimination, and ensured personal safety (ethnic origin, confession, health, judicial issues). The EU Directive
of 1995 on personal data protection recognised the need for preserving historical personal data, yet pointed out
the necessity to secure them.
Along with new inexpensive means of communication, concepts appeared which unconsciously lead to
a proactive approach assuming “publishing”. The existence of Internet has contributed to the idea to make the
access to archives possible in a digital way or at least on CD-ROMs, subject to legal confidentiality periods. In
practical terms, those circumstances trigger out unpredictable infringements of the privacy of persons that the data
relate to and their families.
Such a change of the nature and the volume of distribution leads to the change of the nature of archives which,
as seen by the French organ for data protection, calls for specific cases being analysed on an individual basis."
Źródło: Archeion, t. 109
