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That a consistent approach be adopted across jurisdictions in relation to access by Indigenouspeople to information in Government records. A national code of practice for archival agenciesshould be developed that takes account of the rights and interests of indigenous clients (CentralLand Council submission 495 page 14, recommendation 7 and ATSIC submission 684 page 4,recommendation 7).A key issue for access guidelines will be third party privacy.Privacy is a major issue when dealing with archival research. The information held in Archivefiles relates to family members, someone’s mother and father. The information may not even beknown to the person it is written about and with so many peoples histories located in oneinstitutional file, a person electing to do their own research, has someone else’s history open tothem (Rosie Baird presentation included in Karu submission 540 page 3).At the Commonwealth level Information Privacy Principle 11 prohibits thedisclosure of one person’s personal information to any other person without the firstperson’s consent, except in a narrow set of circumstances which are irrelevant here(Privacy Act 1988). The Commonwealth’s FoI Act reflects this Principle by exemptingpersonal information belonging to a third party from the general disclosure rule. The1995 review of the FoI Act proposed that third party information should only continue tobe exempt if disclosure, on balance, would not be in the public interest (Open government1995 page 127). Although this proposal has yet to be implemented it clearly shows thatpublic policy development is moving away from a blanket protection for third partyinformation. In some circumstances the public interest may require disclosure and therelationship between the searcher and the record subject ought to be relevant to thatdecision (Open government 1995 pages 129-30). This alternative policy of flexibility inrecognition of special circumstances is especially appropriate to the needs of Indigenouspeople seeking family and community information.The need to protect one person’s privacy has to weighed against the need to provideanother with access to personal information. The refusal to release third party identifyinginformation could deny an Indigenous searcher the opportunity for reunion with his orher family and/or community and access to entitlements for which proof of communityconnection or Aboriginality generally is required.Australian Archives advised the Inquiry that in the course of developing theMemorandum of Understanding for Northern Territory records it became apparent that‘the indigenous community and the Archives have differing views on what is sensitiveand what is not’ (submission 602 page 15). Similarly the consultancy report prepared forATSIC by Sonia Smallacombe stated,Within many Aboriginal communities, most people had relatives who suffered from leprosy andthey were often accepted as part of the community. The attitudes of the wider Anglo communityto isolate and reject people who had leprosy was not always evident in the Aboriginalcommunities. Therefore, Aboriginal communities may not regard this information to be sensitiveenough to warrant restriction (with submission 684 page 12).