Oral historians will always consider how to deal with potentially sensitive or harmful material, Dr Anna Green says. Photo: 123RF
Oral historians fear that a new amendment to the Privacy Act will undermine their ability to collect truthful accounts of the past.
The Privacy Amendment Bill requires oral historians to inform any third parties mentioned in any oral histories recorded.
National Oral History Association president Anna Green told Afternoons that the change would deter people from telling their life's history the way they recall it.
Dr Green said they want the government to consider an exemption for when personal information is collected in the public interest, and won't be used for decisions made about individuals.
"An oral historian is really interested in the life histories and experiences of people in the present and what their life history is in the past. So they record life histories past experience perspectives of individuals and they come from all parts of society and it's really for the purpose of learning new information about the past and also creating a unique archival and historical record."
The association deals with the ethics of oral history and how to record people's life histories and protect people's privacy, she said.
The Privacy Amendment Bill took the Privacy Act 2020 a step further, Green said.
"The Privacy Act 2020 applies to anybody who collects personal information about other people and usually it's aimed at state, private and public sector agencies who collect information for the purposes of making decisions and things about people."
The Privacy Act also took in oral historians who were aware of the rules relating to that, she said.
But the Amendment Bill was wider-reaching.
"If I interviewed you about your life history you would no doubt mention many many other people who were important to you during the course of your life, we would be required to tell them that we had collected personal information about them," Green said.
"So it shifts the whole onus on the oral historian that we have to contact the people who are mentioned or referenced or personal information is included about in the oral history interview."
The amendment did have some clauses that could be used to exempt oral historians from having to notify other people, she said.
But it would only be if the Privacy Commissioner decided the exemptions could be made on reasonable grounds.
"We're not sure how it will be interpreted, so I think it will lead, well certainly for oral historians it will have to lead if it stays like this to a very risk adverse process where ... they won't be able to record the kind of interviews they perhaps would've in the past because it will put them at risk of being taken to the Privacy Commission and they have to notify everybody and they don't have the resources to do that either."
Stopping someone from talking about others when they were narrating their own life history suggested that "they can't narrate their life history the way that they understand it", she said.
Oral historians found that "people are very careful and thoughtful when they talk about their lives, and other people in their lives", she said.
"If they know that their interviewer is going to go to other people that they've mentioned, then they won't mention them at all and really it will undermine, fundamentally undermine, the whole value of recording a life history where you do want the person's perspective on their life."
There are already rules and guidelines around conducting oral history interviews with ongoing discussions taking place between the oral historian, the interviewee and the archivist, she said.
"Oral historians always think about the potentially sensitive or harmful or difficult material that might be included in [an] oral history interview, they will talk to the interviewee about closing that part of the interview, or closing the interview for a period of time, or about restricting access to it when it goes into the archive."
Oral historians did not want to cause any harm but they did want to record a reasonably truthful version of the past rather, than one that was biased or restricted, she said.
Everybody had their own subjective memories and although people's version of events may differ, that did not necessarily mean either account was wrong, she said.
"You need to understand the subjective beliefs of people in order to understand the way they behave the way they do," she said.
Oral historians wanted the contribution of oral history to the nation's historical record to be safeguarded and a reinstatement of the collecting and archiving public interest exemption in the Privacy Amendment Bill, she said.
"And that basically would be that if personal information is collected and archived in the public interest and the archived information is not used for measures and decisions about particular individuals and there are controls on the access and usage of personal archived information to protect the privacy of individuals - then it's exempt from third party mandatory notification."
