Birth certificate information

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Dear General Register Office,

Under the FOIA Please could you respond to the following,

1. I understand from reading previous FOI requests that there is no bond, gilt or any financial liability attached to the birth registration process, however, could you please tell me if any bond, gilt or any financial securities, liabilities, considerations are attached AFTER the registration process?

2. From reading previous FOI requests I have ascertained that the actual birth certificate entry register is owned by the Registrar General and that the certificate itself is owned by the owner, whilst i understand that the Birth certificate may be primarily for I.D purposes and that the process is "not about ownership" i feel that the most important aspect is,
who owns the name/title on the birth certificate?

3. Whilst i have seen previous FOI requests answered with "this is not recognised in registration law" I have a question which may be recognised in 'Registration law'.
How is the word 'Register' defined by yourselves under Registration law?

4. From reading previous FOI requests i have ascertained that the copy of the birth certificate that is issued to the 'owner' is not a photo copy but a copy of the information in the register of births,
Can you tell me if there is any other information whatsoever in the original entry that is omitted from the 'True copy' in the owners possession?

Finally, whilst i understand this question may not be answerable under the FOIA I would be grateful if you could tell me why an innocuous thing such as the birth entry is unavailable to be viewed without a court order even by the "person' that owns the birth certificate? even though it would be easy for that 'person' to prove their identity using various forms of I.D that have been generated from the birth certificate itself in the first place?

Yours faithfully,
jamie hawes

Hughes Selwyn,

Dear Jamie Hawes,

Thank you for your enquiry. I am responding to your enquiry as "official
correspondence" rather than under the provisions of the Freedom of
Information Act, but that has made no difference to my response.

I have added a response to each of your questions below (response in
capital letters for ease of ref)

With best wishes

Selwyn Hughes
Communications Manager
Her Majesty's Passport Office | General Register Office | Communications
and Business Support | Room 205 Smedley Hydro | Trafalgar Road |
Southport | PR8 2HH
E: [email address]

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Dear Hughes Selwyn,

Thank you for your response, however i couldn't understand your answer to my first question.
The question was,
Could you please tell me if any bond, gilt, financial liabilities, considerations are attached AFTER the registration process?

Your answer was NO-NO BOND, GILT ETC IS INVOLVED

Are you saying, NO you cant tell me? or NO , there is no bond, gilt, financial liabilities, considerations attached AFTER the registration process?

Please simplify the answer by answering yes or no to the following,

Is any bond, gilt, financial liabilities, securities or considerations attached AFTER the birth registration process?

My second question was,
Who owns the name/title on the birth certificate?
Please may i rephrase the question,

Who owns copyright of the name entered on the birth certificate?

MY third question was,
How is the word 'Registration' defined by yourselves under registration law? To which your reply was,
THE REGISTER IS THE BOOK IN WHICH THE BIRTH ENTRIES ARE RECORDED.

With respect my question wasn't "what is the name of the book in which the birth entries are recorded"

My question was and remains,
How is the word 'Register' DEFINED by yourselves under registration law?

Finally, in regard to my last question,
Can you tell me how many court orders have been granted giving access to the Birth Register?

Yours sincerely,

jamie hawes

jonah left an annotation ()

The Birth certificate is property of the state. The state can demand return of one from a recipient of, at anytime.

The form itself is copyright of "The Crown" not the name or details of the persons on it.

The name on the BC is a registered name pursuant to section 13 of the act.

jamie hawes left an annotation ()

Jonah,
Where did you get the information that says the form itself is crown copyright and not the name ?
There is nothing to suggest it isn't both..
All FOI requests regarding this matter have been met with limited, ambiguous answers.

Hughes Selwyn,

Dear Jamie Hawes,

In my earlier email I was saying that there is no bond, gilt etc
attached after the registration process.

There is no copyright of the name entered on the register entry (or of
any other information in the entry). Crown copyright applies to the
layout of the entry, but not to the information recorded in it.

In terms of the register, there isn't a specific interpretation of the
word in the Births and Deaths Registration Act. However, section 5 of
that Act says that the registrar shall register a birth in the
prescribed form and manner. These are prescribed under current
regulations in the Registration of Births and Deaths Regulations 1987.
In those regulations, it is defined that an "entry" means a record of
the particulars relating to a live birth completed by the registrar in
the appropriate spaces in form 1; the relevant form (ie the layout of
the current birth entry) is then shown later in the regulations.

I do not know how many court orders may have been granted giving access
to a birth register. If any have, they would be recorded on a case by
case basis according to the particular circumstances of the case
involved, and we do not centrally compile such figures.

I hope this helps to clarify my earlier answer.

With best wishes,
Selwyn Hughes
Communications Manager
Her Majesty's Passport Office | General Register Office | Communications
and Business Support | Room 205 Smedley Hydro | Trafalgar Road |
Southport | PR8 2HH
E: [email address]

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Dear Hughes Selwyn,

Thank you for your response, however, in your response you have limited the answer to my question by saying 'no bond gilt etc is involved' but have twice answered my question with no mention of the 'financial securities liabilities, considerations' that i've mentioned,

To simplify things for anyone that reads this FOI request can you please answer YES or NO to the following.

Are there any financial considerations, liabilities, securities attached after the registration process?

Yes/no?

You also replied to my question of who owns copyright to the name on the Birth Certificate by saying there is no copyright of the name in the register, with respect i didnt ask who had copyright of the name entered in the register, i asked who had copyright of the name on the Birth certificate.

Unfortunately the question remains.

Who has/owns copyright of the name on the Birth Certificate?

You also stated in previous FOI requests that the birth Certificate is 'owned by the owner'
Can you tell me who this is please?

Finally, to the best of your knowledge have you ever personally known any member of the public to have successfully been granted a court order to view their own entry in the Birth Register?

I very much appreciate your help in these matters and would like to thank you for the time spent answering my questions.

Many thanks
jamie hawes

Yours sincerely,

jamie hawes

Dear Hughes Selwyn,

Thankyou for your response

This is a follow up to an earlier question which went unanswered.

you explained that the register is the book of birth entries, however, my question was,

How is the word Register defined by yourselves?

Yours sincerely,

jamie hawes

nethy left an annotation ()

I feel sorry for Selwyn Hughes, all these FOI requests and people going into his office trying to get an appointment to clarify what this birth certificate is all about, I also notice the same guy is also the correspondance officer for the Passport Office, my word, he must be paid very well to evade the truth