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SALT LAKE CITY — A genealogy website getting a lot of attention provides access to a vast amount of information. In fact, some people might be surprised at just how much you can learn from it.
FamilyTreeNow.com bills itself as a way to build your family tree online for free using its collection of census records, birth and death records, marriage and divorce records and other information. It also has a whole lot of information about anyone you might be interested in looking up.
A quick search of any name could reveal past and current addresses, names of family members and their information as well. A lot of the information is public record and has been available already, but the website makes it easy to find all the information in one place. That's led to some concern about privacy.
"When we talk about privacy, in today's world that's hyper-connected, that's always on, where this (a smartphone) is the equivalent of a supercomputer, the reality is there is no privacy unless you completely disconnect from the web, from the internet," said technology consultant David Politis.
Politis said people may not realize how much information they broadcast to the world through social media profiles, in addition to other websites. On the other hand, he said there have always been ways to find out people's personal information.
"The reality is, the data's available. It's already available in all my utility records. It's available in my credit card information. People have been getting that information nefariously for a long time," Politis said.
People who are concerned about privacy can opt-out of FamilyTreeNow.com if they like by going to the "Contact Us" portion of the website at the bottom of the page.
