2023 New York Laws › PBH - Public Health › Article 41 - Vital Statistics › Title 3 - Registration of Births › 4138-E - Adoptee's Right to a Certified Copy of His or Her Birth Certificate.

§  4138-e.  Adoptee's  right  to  a certified copy of his or her birth
certificate.  1.  The  legislature  hereby  states  its   intention   to
acknowledge,  support  and encourage the life-long health and well-being
needs of persons who have been and will be adopted in  this  state.  The
legislature further recognizes that the denial of access to accurate and
complete  medical and self-identifying data of any adopted person, known
and wilfully withheld by others, may result in such person succumbing to
preventable disease, premature death or otherwise unhealthy life,  is  a
violation of that person's human rights and is contrary to the tenets of
government.  As  such,  the provisions of this section seek to establish
considerations  under  the  law  for  adopted  persons  equal  to   such
considerations permitted by law to all non-adopted persons; this section
does  so while providing for the privacy of an adopted person and his or
her birth.
2. (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the commissioner or
a local registrar or any person authorized  by  the  commissioner  or  a
local  registrar,  upon  application, proof of identity and payment of a
nominal fee, shall issue certified copies of original long form line  by
line,  vault  copy  birth certificates, including any change attached to
that certificate by a birth  parent  or  parents,  and  any  information
provided   to   the  commissioner  or  a  local  registrar  pursuant  to
subdivision  one  of  section  one  hundred  fourteen  of  the  domestic
relations  law,  to  (i)  an adopted person, if eighteen years of age or
more, or (ii) if the adopted person is deceased,  the  adopted  person's
direct  line  descendants,  or  (iii) the lawful representatives of such
adopted person, or  lawful  representatives  of  such  deceased  adopted
person's direct line descendants, as the case may be.
(b)  When  it  shall  be  impossible  for  the commissioner or a local
registrar to provide a copy of an adult adopted person's  original  long
form  birth  certificate  (as may occur in the case of an adopted person
born outside of, but adopted within, the state and such  certificate  is
not  part  of the records of the commissioner or a local registrar), the
true and correct information about the adopted person  and  the  adopted
person's  birth  parents,  including their identifying information, that
would have appeared on such original birth certificate shall be provided
to: (i) the adopted person, if eighteen years of age or more, or (ii) if
the adopted  person  is  deceased,  the  adopted  person's  direct  line
descendants, or (iii) the lawful representatives of such adopted person,
or  lawful representatives of such deceased adopted person's direct line
descendants, as the case may be by any authorized agency as  defined  in
paragraphs  (a)  and  (b)  of  subdivision  ten of section three hundred
seventy-one of the social services law. In such case, the  agency  shall
be held harmless from any liability arising out of the disclosure.
(c)  For  purposes  of this subdivision, the term "commissioner" shall
include the state commissioner of health, the commissioner of health and
mental hygiene of the city of New York and for records of birth prior to
January first, nineteen hundred fourteen, the local  registrars  of  the
cities of Albany, Buffalo and Yonkers.