Actually this isn't a change in the PA law regarding who gets access to what records. It's just creating more annoying hoops to jump through. PA has for a long time been pretty restrictive, limiting access to birth and death records to certain direct family members and certain authorities. While I haven't actually seen the full text of the PA law, my experience has been that it is written so that even churches are covered and won't give out baptismal info to anyone except the parent or the individual until after either 75 or 100 years or you provide proof that the person is deceased. (I forget which...still have to double-check on it) This is just a change in the administrative procedures for accountability...so when something is discovered such as identity theft, welfare fraud, fraud in collecting insurance money, or even terrorism, and it's discovered that the crook used a certified document from this state agency, the agency can throw their hands up and say "but we do everything we possibly can to make sure we only send our documents to the 'right' people." All these new procedures do is require you to prove you are who you say you are (i.e., my name is so-and-so) when you sign their form in order to get the certificates, and that they send the documents only to your "official" address. In light of their stated intent to curb identity theft, however, it's rather amusing that you don't have to send proof of your relationship to the person whose certificate you are requesting (which is the guideline for restricted access to the records stated in the law in the first place); and if you are ordering online with a credit card, you don't even have to prove you are who you say you are (no driver's license required)! They accept just the credit card online and send the document to the billing address. In cases of identity theft, someone could easily already have stolen a credit card, changed the billing address, and then use it to obtain other certified documents (simply stating he/she is the accepted relation of the person whose document they want), and then use the documents he gets to establish other fake identities. The crooks they are trying to stop just keep this cycle constantly going, constantly changing from one ID to another. The new regulations MIGHT help them track down the crook IF they are fast enough (doubtful) after he's discovered; but that's not really likely; and it's not really likely to stop many crooks from getting the records in the first place. What they really need if they are to really curb the problem of identity theft and fraud is probably some sort of unique national registration system that doesn't rely on data like birthdates, names, addresses, mother's maiden names, social security numbers, etc.). They need a national registration system that uses something that is totally unique to an individual, like dna or retinal scans...something that cannot easily be fraudulently copied. As far as being technologically capable, it's definitely coming. Unfortunately, despite the fact that most have often systematically given up all of the above personal information to places that had no business asking, and despite the fact that dna or retinal scans would be far more conclusive identification, most people would balk at the idea of a national registration system based on dna or retinal scans or anything else even more personal for countless reasons, not the least of which was the holocaust of the Jews in the 1900s. The prospect of what could conceivably be done with the information if it fell into the wrong hands is just too frightening for more people. Diane Sandra E. T. Duncan wrote: