The selection of case files the right to social memory versus the right to social oblivion
Inge Bundsgaard
Provincial Archives of Zealand, The Danish State Archives
Public administrations in modern societies still produce huge amounts of conventional paper records. In most cases, it is the responsibility of the public archival institutions to decide what is to be retained and what can be disposed of. In the archival world - amongst archivists - policies of retention have often been discussed. Whatever ideal principles may be brought, forward any responsible archivist will know that for purely economical reasons the bulk of these mountains of public papers have to be discharged.
No small part of these paper mountains consists of the huge amount of case files produced in most modern societies, often containing highly sensitive information about identifiable individual citizens. I'm thinking of case files containing information about birth and death, religious confession, private economic conditions, criminal records, records concerning illegitimate childbirth, adoption, hospital records, records concerning social assistance and other kinds of social services - to mention only a few kinds of these personal case files.
When discussing the principles and policies of retention and disposition of public archival records, the personal case files tend to be forgotten and the interest focussed instead on records containing information about political decision-making and the political and administrative deliberations behind new legislative and administrative initiatives. These kinds of records are of course important, containing as they do vital information about why and how our societies function the way they do. It is my point that from a different perspective the personal case files contain information that is just as vital for our understanding of modern societies.
The personal case files contain - among other things - information about how public laws and regulations and public institutions affect individual citizens in various aspects of their lives. Many of the data contained in such files are of a trivial, repetitive and routine character. But it is also in these kinds of public administrative files - and often only here - that we find information about the interaction of public administration and the individual citizen. These files are of value both for the individuals and for society as a whole. For the individual, they may contain information of vital importance for the self-knowledge and self-identity of that individual. To the extent that these files contain information about the interaction between society as represented by public authorities and individual citizens, this information is also of vital importance in the formation of the self-identity of that society.
The sheer bulk of personal case files and other kinds of files containing personal and private information about individual persons have made them a obvious target for disposition in an attempt by archives to handle the huge amounts of modern administrative records. In many countries - amongst them Denmark - only segments of these kinds of records from the latter half of the 20th century have been retained.
As more and more official documents are created in electronic form (and that often is the case with personal files), and can be retained and used in that form, the necessity of disposition lessens. Preservation of these kinds of records is, however, still threatened by tendencies in the public debate and by practical and economic necessities, policy, and habits of modern archival administration.
The growing possibilities of retaining personal files and the growing possibilities of using these files, and combining different personal information from different electronic systems, open up exciting possibilities for research, but also cause concerns in the public and political debate.
The public debate will tend to focus on questions relating to the possibilities of political control of individual citizens and to their right to privacy. And the prevailing opinions in most democratic countries will tend to favour the disposition of such data as quickly as possible, perhaps even to prohibit the creating of such data where possible, from both a political and an ethical point of view.
How shall the archives respond to such a debate, which might very well put strong political pressure on the archives to carry out ethical disposition of various personal file cases?
Social memory seems such an ambitious word to use when talking about such pragmatic things as public administrative records. Records of this kind are first and foremost historical sources to the way our public administrations have interpreted their tasks and how they have implemented that interpretation.
Never the less, archival records in the form of personal case files give us a rare opportunity to study the meeting between the public administration and the people they administer. It is, of course, important to remember that the information we find in these records is created largely by the administrative bodies. Still, it is here that we have an opportunity to gain the insight that will allow us to understand both the impact of official laws and regulations and the public response to these. It is also here that the historian often finds the life and colour that can illustrate and personify abstract and theoretical reflections. And it is here that private citizens sometimes can find the information that makes it possible for them to understand their own history. Combined with other kinds of material, records of this kind are an important part of our social memory.
The possibility of retaining these files in the future in the form of electronic documents makes it vital to reconsider current retention policy in archival institutions in all countries. At the same time, the legitimate claims for the right to privacy makes it necessary for the archives to consider how these claims can be met without disposing of valuable and vital data.
We have here a conflict of interest between, on the one hand, the rights and the protection of the individual citizen, and on the other hand the protection of the cultural heritage. In a way, it is a question of the right of the individual to social oblivion, the protection of privacy, versus the right of society to its social, cultural and historical memory as contained in the archival records.
To solve that conflict is one of many challenges for modern archival institutions.
Inge Bundsgaard
- 1951 Born.
- 1982 MA (cand. phil.) in History from the University of Aarhus.
- 1982-1984 Research fellow under the Danish National Research Council for the Humanities on projects concerning 1) The Danish Herrnhut Community in Christiansfeld, and 2) The development of Danish railway towns in the 19th and 20th centuries.
- 1984-1986 Temporary archivist at the Danish National Archives.
- 1986-1987 Adviser on archival matters for the local historical collections in the County of Vestsjælland on a project concerning the archives of the voluntary associations of the 19th and 20th centuries.
- 1987-1993 Head of the municipal archives and local historical collections of Herlev.
- 1992- Historical adviser (and author) concerning voluntary associations for the editorial staff of the Danish National Encyclopaedia.
- 1992-1997 Editor (together with archivist Michael H. Gelting) of Fortid og Nutid, a periodical about local and cultural history.
- 1993-1997 Researcher and archivist at The Provincial Archives of Sjælland m.m.
- 1997 - Director of The Provincial Archives of Sjælland m.m., Director of the Danish State Archives' Centre of Conservation.
- 1997 - Member of the editorial board of the Danish archival magazine ARKIV 1998- Member of the editorial board of the Swedish archival periodical Arkiv, samhälle och forskning (Archives, society and research).
- 1998- Chairman of the Danish State Archives Commission on the Development of Archival Database Systems.
Publications: Has written various articles and books on Danish social, cultural and administrative history in the 19th and 20th centuries, on the development of local historical collections and local historical research in Denmark (in connection with this an article in The American Archivist, vol. 55, no. 1, Winter 1992. Special International Issue, p. 46-58: "What To Be or Not to Be? Evolving Identities for State and Grassroots Archives in Denmark," together with Michael H. Gelting). Has also written articles on new methods of archival descriptions.