The birth and death details evidence type contains information such as date of birth, date of death and mother's birth last name. Date of birth is captured at participant registration and is mandatory for a person (and optional for a prospect person) so once the registration process is complete, a birth and death evidence record is created automatically. Only one birth and death record can exist for a participant or a case at any point in time and the information does not change over time, so users must update the existing record as a correction when making changes. For example, a client might contact the organization to say he incorrectly entered his date of birth during an online application for benefits. The user would view his birth and death details record and update the date of birth as a correction.
Birth and death details records brokered from another case are processed automatically. Because there can only ever be one birth and death details record, the system checks for an existing record, and if one is found, the system checks whether the incoming record is logically identical to the existing record using the 'date of birth' and 'date of death' attributes. If the attributes match, the incoming record is deemed to be a duplicate and no updates are made. If the attributes do not match, the system updates the existing record held with the details on the incoming record (where the incoming record has the latest received date). If no existing birth and death details record is found, the system adds this as a new record.