A/HRC/14/42 that information relates. States should ensure respect for the relevant standards and principles on the protection of personal data whenever information, including medical and genetic information, is managed and processed. Exchange of information among those involved should take place without endangering victims, the persons collecting the information or the sources of information. 85. The data must be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purposes for which they are processed. Such purposes must be explicit, legitimate and determined at the time of collection. The data should be destroyed as soon as the purpose of their collection has been fulfilled or when they are no longer needed. They may, however, be retained for a given period if required for the benefit of the person to whom they relate or if they are essential for the performance of the humanitarian tasks of the organization that collected the data. 86. Locating missing persons and/or finding information about them requires searches of all possible records. The records of local government units, such as the police, are important, as is information that can be derived from cemetery and morgue records. 87. The issue of data management is also relevant to exhumation projects in the search for missing persons. While oral reports may provide information about possible sites of graves or mass graves, records of military or other government personnel, who may have been assigned to, for example, dig graves or who were involved in transportation to or from the site, may also provide or corroborate information. 88. State authorities should provide access to pre-war health and dental records to facilitate the identification process of mortal remains in more traditional ways. 89. States should provide adequate sanctions for destroying or unlawfully withholding information on missing persons. XI. Cooperation 90. States should cooperate at the international level in order to effectively solve cases of missing persons by providing mutual assistance in terms of information-sharing, victim assistance, location and identification of missing persons, and exhuming, identifying and returning human remains. 91. International humanitarian law can only work in practice if belligerents, or former belligerents, cooperate with each other. Accordingly, the issue of the missing cannot be solved unilaterally by one side to the conflict: close cooperation and coordination is necessary between the different sides to the conflict. Parties to an armed conflict should refrain from acting on the basis of reciprocity in dealing with the issue of the missing. Sharing of information or taking action, for example, should not be conditional on the other side doing the same. In other words, cooperation should be unconditional; humanitarian law is not subject to any principle of reciprocity. 92. Following an armed conflict, bilateral and multilateral cooperation among States in conjunction with humanitarian organizations can lead to more effective assistance to families. States should endeavor to address the humanitarian nature of the problem independently of other inter-State issues so as to avoid further distress to the families of missing persons pending the resolution of political issues. 93. Intergovernmental organizations and ICRC, acting in conformity with their respective mandates, should be available to support government authorities and armed groups in fulfilling their responsibilities. 16 GE.10-12433