CGL Regulatory Compliance 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which U.S. law restricts access to adoption records and affects genealogical research by limiting birth parent identification?
- Uniform Adoption Act provisions in many states (Correct answer)
- National Adoption Disclosure Act
- Federal Adoption Privacy Law
- Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children
Correct answer: Uniform Adoption Act provisions in many states
State-level adoption laws based on the Uniform Adoption Act commonly seal original birth certificates, restricting genealogical access.
Question 2: A genealogy lecturer posts a digitized 1910 family photograph found in a public archive to their course website. The main legal concern is:
- Defamation of the people depicted
- Potential copyright held by the photographer or their estate (Correct answer)
- Violation of HIPAA for medical information visible in the photo
- FERPA restrictions on educational materials
Correct answer: Potential copyright held by the photographer or their estate
Photographs published in 1910 may still be under copyright if they were never properly published with copyright notice under pre-1978 law, or if copyright was renewed.
Question 3: When a CGL lecturer is hired as an independent contractor by a genealogical society, which tax-related obligation does the lecturer bear that an employee would not?
- Filing an annual tax return
- Paying self-employment tax covering both employer and employee Social Security portions (Correct answer)
- Withholding state income tax
- Reporting income over $600 to the IRS
Correct answer: Paying self-employment tax covering both employer and employee Social Security portions
Self-employed independent contractors must pay the full 15.3% self-employment tax, covering both the employee and employer shares of Social Security and Medicare.
Question 4: The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) affects a U.S.-based CGL lecturer primarily when they:
- Publish research findings in an American genealogy journal
- Collect personal data from European Union residents attending an online webinar (Correct answer)
- Access European records through U.S.-based databases
- Cite European archival sources in a handout
Correct answer: Collect personal data from European Union residents attending an online webinar
GDPR applies to any entity collecting or processing personal data of EU residents, regardless of the collector's location.
Question 5: Which IRS form must a genealogical society issue to a CGL lecturer who earned more than $600 for speaking engagements in a calendar year?
- W-2
- 1099-NEC (Correct answer)
- 1099-MISC (Box 7)
- W-9
Correct answer: 1099-NEC
Since 2020, nonemployee compensation over $600 is reported on Form 1099-NEC, which replaced Box 7 of the 1099-MISC for this purpose.
Question 6: A CGL lecturer uses a genealogy database that requires users to agree to a Terms of Service (ToS). Violating ToS by scraping data for lecture handouts could expose the lecturer to liability under:
- The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) (Correct answer)
- HIPAA
- The Electronic Communications Privacy Act only
- No law, since ToS violations are purely civil contract matters
Correct answer: The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)
Courts have held that unauthorized computer access, including ToS violations on certain platforms, can trigger CFAA liability.
Question 7: When a genealogy lecturer reproduces a U.S. government-produced document (e.g., a NARA finding aid) in their educational handout, copyright law generally:
- Requires permission from the National Archives
- Does not apply because U.S. federal government works are in the public domain (Correct answer)
- Requires a Creative Commons license attribution
- Restricts reproduction to non-commercial use only
Correct answer: Does not apply because U.S. federal government works are in the public domain
Works created by U.S. federal government employees as part of their official duties are in the public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105.
CGL Regulatory Compliance 3
Which U.S. law restricts access to adoption records and affects genealogical research by limiting birth parent identification?