Commentary on Sections Part 1 - Adoption Chapter 5 – Registers Section 79: Adoption Contact Register
Subsection (1) places a duty on the Registrar General to continue to maintain, in accordance with regulations, the Adoption Contact Register at the General Register Office. The Adoption Contact Register is a register in two Parts, designed to facilitate contact between adopted persons and their birth relatives where both parties have expressed a wish for such contact. Subsection (2) enables the Registrar General to prescribe in regulations the information about adopted persons who wish to make contact with their relatives to be included in Part 1 of the Adoption Contact Register. Subsection (3) provides that the Registrar General may make an entry for an adopted person in Part 1 of the Register if a record of that person’s birth is kept by the Registrar General, that person has attained the age of 18 years and the Registrar General is satisfied that the adopted person has such information as is necessary to obtain a copy of their birth record. Under subsection (4), the Registrar General is able to make regulations prescribing the information about relatives of adopted persons to be included in Part 2 of the Adoption Contact Register. It is intended that these regulations will cover information similar to that included in the regulations made under subsection (2), such as names and addresses.
Subsection (5) provides that the Registrar General may only make an entry in Part 2 of the Register for a person who has attained the age of 18 and if the Registrar General is satisfied that he is a relative of an adopted person and has such information as is necessary to enable him to obtain a certified copy of the record of the adopted person's birth. Subsection (6) enables the Registrar General to make regulations providing for the disclosure of information contained in one Part of the Register to persons included in the other Part of the Register. Such regulations may provide, for example, that information held on the Register should only be given to the adopted person in order to enable them to make a choice as to whether to initiate contact with their relative(s). Subsection (6) also provides that regulations may be made by the Registrar General to set fees for the making or alteration of entries in the Register, and the disclosure of information contained in it.