It just seemed strange to me with the US freedom of information being much more open with other records than in the UK that birth certificates could not be routinely requested and looked at by all.
In Britain you can look at and by paying a fee obtain any death, marriage or birth certificate of course you need to know where and approximately where the person was born/married or died in order to get the number from the register but apart from that this is all you would need.
It just seemed strange to me with the US freedom of information being much more open with other records than in the UK that birth certificates could not be routinely requested and looked at by all.
The distinction in the US is that The Freedom of Information Act applies to government agencies, but has 9 exemptions, one of which is
(b)(6) EXEMPTION 6 Personal Information Affecting an Individual's Privacy. This exemption permits the government to withhold all information about individuals in "personnel and medical files and similar files" when the disclosure of such information " would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." This exemption cannot be invoked to withhold from a requester information pertaining to the requester.So private information is not covered. In the case of birth, marriage, etc. certificates, each state makes its own laws. We sure as heck want to know what the government is doing, but we do like our privacy for private citizens.