Privacy and security are major issues when displaying and sharing family history information, so the TreePress website features a comprehensive suite of privacy controls.

Overview

Data Privacy is dependent on three levels of controls.

At the broadest level, viewing rights are controlled by the “Account Status” – is the User a loggin in site member or a member of the public browsing the public area of the site?

“Family Groups” then allow data owners to define what information can be seen for batches of family members.

Finally “Trusted Status” allows data owners to involve individual users more deeply in their research – for example, by sharing editing rights for data in a particualar Family Group.

 

Account or Logged On Status

The User’s Status is similar to WordPress’s default User Roles (Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor, Subscriber) – but rather than controlling access to all posts and pages, the User Status controls what can be seen on an individual record based on the Family Groups that record is assigned to.  (In effect, it’s like giving a user a different Role depending on the Category a Post has been assigned to).

A given Status enhances or reduces the information you can view on members of a Family Group.  The exact information depends on the Privacy Policy applied to that Family Group by the Owner.  Owners can enhance Member’s access to individual Family Groups by giving Member’s a ‘Trusted’ status for that Group.

	Account Type	Users Status in Relation to a Family Group could be:
A	Admin Control Panel	?
B	Plugin User Control Panel	Owner – The person who has submitted the Family Group information to the Hub. (via Sync with TreePress plugin) Trusted – Enhanced viewing rights can be granted by a Family Group Owner to view information for a particular Group. Member – A registered member of the Hub site
C	Registered User (Non-Plugin) Control Panel	Owner – The person who has submitted the Family Group information to the Hub. (via Gedcom upload to hub) Trusted – Enhanced viewing rights can be granted by a Family Group Owner to view information for a particular Group. Member – A registered member of the Hub site
D	Public Front End	Non-Member – Anyone who is not logged in to the Hub site.

 

Family Group Privacy Policy

The policy controls what information on an individual is displayed.  The Owner can set the policy for each Family Group they submit to the Hub.

UNLISTED

• Profiles are entirely hidden from everyone except the Owner and those on the Trusted List who can see all information on an individual.
• Unlisted names do not appear in search results or surname index pages unless you are the Owner or a Trusted User.

PRIVATE

This will allow logged in members to view all submitted information on anyone born more than 150 years ago or deceased over 100 years ago plus partial information on living individuals who are TreePress Members.  Logged in Member and Public searches will only show partial information on more recently deceased individuals.

SEMI-PRIVATE – RECOMMENDED SETTING

This will allow logged in members to view all submitted information on any deceased people and partial information on living individuals who are TreePress Members.  Non-Members (public searches) will only see partial information on individuals who died less than 100 years ago.  (We will offer a ‘discover more’ option to encourage registration.

PUBLIC

Anyone can see full information on individuals who have died and partial information on living individuals who are TreePress Members.

OPEN

This would reveal the most information, even some partial information on living people – option would not be recommended but might be suitable in a small number of use case. We would flash a Warning and Disclaimer when this is chosen.

In Summary this would give us the following policies:

		User Status
Family Group Policy		Owner	Trusted*	Member	Non-Member
UNLISTED
Living – Member		All Visible	No Visible Info	No Visible Info	No Visible Info
Living – Non-Member		All Visible	No Visible Info	No Visible Info	No Visible Info
Born 150+ or Died 100+ Years Ago		All Visible	No Visible Info	No Visible Info	No Visible Info
Died Less than 100 Years Ago		All Visible	No Visible Info	No Visible Info	No Visible Info
		User Status
Family Group Policy		Owner	Trusted*	Member	Non-Member
PRIVATE
Living – Member		All Visible	All Visible	Partial	Partial
Living – Non-Member		All Visible	All Visible	No Visible Info	No Visible Info
Born 150+ or Died 100+ Years Ago		All Visible	All Visible	All Visible	All Visible
Died Less than 100 Years Ago		All Visible	All Visible	Partial	Partial
		User Status
Family Group Policy		Owner	Trusted*	Member	Non-Member
SEMI-PRIVATE
Living – Member		All Visible	All Visible	Partial	Partial
Living – Non-Member		All Visible	All Visible	No Visible Info	No Visible Info
Born 150+ or Died 100+ Years Ago		All Visible	All Visible	All Visible	All Visible
Died Less than 100 Years Ago		All Visible	All Visible	All Visible	Partial
		User Status
Family Group Policy		Owner	Trusted*	Member	Non-Member
PUBLIC
Living – Member		All Visible	All Visible	Partial	Partial
Living – Non-Member		All Visible	All Visible	No Visible Info	No Visible Info
Born 150+ or Died 100+ Years Ago		All Visible	All Visible	All Visible	All Visible
Died Less than 100 Years Ago		All Visible	All Visible	All Visible	All Visible
		User Status
Family Group Policy		Owner	Trusted*	Member	Non-Member
OPEN
Living – Member		All Visible	All Visible	Partial	Partial
Living – Non-Member		All Visible	All Visible	Partial	Partial
Born 150+ or Died 100+ Years Ago		All Visible	All Visible	All Visible	All Visible
Died Less than 100 Years Ago		All Visible	All Visible	All Visible	All Visible

*Trusted status would be further divided – see section 3.2 below

NOTE 01: Assumed Dates of Birth and Death

In order to control the display of information where there is no birth of death date, the system should assume the following:

They are dead if:

• There is a date of death present
• They have a date of birth over 150 years ago
• They are the ancestor of someone born more than 150 years ago

They are alive:

• If a date of death is not present and the date of birth is less than 150 years ago
• Neither birth or death dates are present

Death overrides life in the event that two conditions are true – e.g. neither a birth or death date exists (assume alive) but they are the ancestor of someone born more than 150 years ago (assume dead) – death wins.

NOTE 02: Partial Data

Search results and reports will display the following (don’t show empty fields in search results)

	Full	Partial	Note
Name	Full Name	Full Name
Photo	Thumbnail and Full Size	Thumbnail only	Thumb on Search results and Tree, Full size in reports
Date of Birth	Day, Month, Year	Year
Date of Death	Day, Month, Year	Year
Date of Marriage	Day, Month, Year	Year
Father	Full Name	First Name	Hyperlink to Profile
Mother	Full Name	First Name	Hyperlink to Profile
Spouse	Full Name Inc. Maiden Surname	First Name	Hyperlink to Profile
Birth Location	Full	Country
Death Location	Full	Country
Marriage Location	Full	Country
Siblings	Full Name	First Name	Hyperlinks to Profiles
Login/Register Link

 

Trusted Status – Editing Permissions

Editing options within a Family Group on the Hub for Trusted members.  Any data marked ‘All Visible’ in the table above could be amended as follows:

[REVISIT THIS TABLE WHEN DONE WITH FUNCTIONALITY]

	Trusted Status (Sub-Status)
Permissions	Editor	Author	Contributor	Subscriber
View ‘All Visible’ data	✔	✔	✔	✔
Create a New Individual within a Family Group	✔	✔
Publish a New Individual within a Family Group	✔
Edit Individual Records	✔	✔	✔
Delete Individuals	✔
Change the Privacy Policy for Family Group.
Create New Family Groups (as Owner) and link an Individual to that Family Group
Upload files
Import / Merge Data
Export Data
Private Family Group Discussion Boards

 

The Family Group Owner will have an option to synchronise changes back to their TreePress/WordPress site and will retain the ‘definitive’ version of a Family Group on their site.  If they close their site, or uninstall the TreePress plugin, they will have an option to transfer to the Account Type for non-Plugin owners so a copy of the data will reman in the Hub.

The Premium plugin will have an option to ‘Share’ read only versions of Family Groups on multiple websites (via an API?) – so an Owner could allow other family members to show a tree of their data, but the Owner will retain control.