When “That’s Unfair!” Meets “You Agreed to the Rules”

Full disclosure: I asked ChatGPT to help me title this post. AI was NOT used to create the post itself.

A few days ago, in a Facebook Ancestry.com Users Group post, a user was asking people to speak out against Ancestry for blocking Ramapo College IGG (investigative genetic genealogy) users from accessing Ancestry's records and services (including free record collections, Newspapers and FindAGrave). Some members of the group feel it's unfair because they say they're just trying to give a name back to the dead (a wonderful and worthy cause) and they apparently feel they need access to Ancestry's services to do this. 

Ancestry apparently informed the college, using the site is a violation of section 1.3 of the Terms and Conditions. Ancestry clearly states "In exchange for access to the Services, you agree:...Not to use the Services in connection with any law enforcement investigation or judicial proceeding." And therein lies the crux of the issue. Every user agrees to the Terms of Service (TOS) when they sign up for site access. Just because they don't like the rules doesn't mean they don't apply.

It's well known, GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA have a process in place to work with law enforcement agencies with regard to DNA. But neither of those sites have record collections, and this issue (as framed by the person who posted) isn't about DNA matching, it's supposedly about record access. On the Ramapo College website, with regard to IGG it clearly states "We do not list cases of violent crime in which we are working to identify the suspect, due to the sensitive nature of such cases." This muddies the waters tremendously, because they are not simply giving a name to a Jane or John Doe. If the group, in even one instance, is trying to identify a suspect...or even if they find the identity of a deceased person and the identity is then used in a law enforcement case - they've violated the terms of service.

And while I generally support the idea of accessing records already freely available to the public, there's absolutely no mechanism on Ancestry to prevent these same users from accessing public user trees, and potentially seeing information NOT publicly and widely available (such as photos, documents or other user uploaded content). Sure, I get it - it's easier for researchers at a site with the vast record collections Ancestry has. If I could only have one subscription, it would be Ancestry, precisely for this reason. But convenience alone does not make it alright to violate TOS, no matter how well intentioned a user may be. 

If all they're after are these "public" and "freely available" collections, they can find the same information elsewhere (though it will likely take more clicks to do so, or potentially require them to visit a physical location to obtain the records). FamilySearch and the National Archives come to mind as free resources (assuming they don't have similar terms and conditions). If I had to guess, the really big loss here is most likely access to user trees. 

To be clear, I'm all for identifying unknown remains, especially to provide closure to families who don't know if their relative is alive or dead. I have a lot of respect for those who embark on this, often difficult, journey. But I have to say, I 100% support Ancestry on this one. Given we're already aware researchers knowingly took advantage of loopholes on GEDmatch in the past, why would we ever believe IGG researchers would limit themselves to free record collections only, never being tempted to look at user trees? Searching a bit further on the Ramapo website, I found this:  "The IGG Center has three missions:

• Using IGG to resolve cases involving violent crime, unidentified human remains, and wrongful convictions
• Training students to become proficient and ethical IGG practitioners
• Researching the field of IGG and finding ways to expand its reach to further secure justice"

Given this, it's clear their intended reach stretches far beyond just accessing public records to match a name to remains. And if they truly intend to be "ethical IGG practitioners" shouldn't it include teaching their students how to understand and abide by TOS for each and every site they utilize in their research? I'm not a lawyer and I don't pretend to understand the complex nuances of the law, but violating TOS to obtain an identity might just make the results legally unusable in a court of law. 

This isn't about Ancestry willy-nilly restricting access to the site. It's about users who've apparently been getting away with violating TOS and now they're upset they can't continue to do so. It was never ethically responsible for them to use Ancestry in the first place. Is "I'll never peek at your tree" good enough for you? It's not for me! 

This is just my opinion, and I know some people will feel very differently. Totally fine. We don't have to agree. But I'm glad Ancestry is enforcing TOS and removing their access to the site. It's not about my privacy. My tree is public. It's about those who think rules don't apply to them, even though they agreed to play by them.

Image by AvocetGEO from Pixabay