Mormon missionaries move around during their two-year preaching missions, but the phones they use remain in the different preaching locations. This means that contact details of “interested persons” are routinely passed on from one missionary pair to the next, when the phone is handed over. In order to comply with the new data protection rules, missionaries now ask for consent to keep data from their contacts. My experience is that this request for consent, where the missionaries already have your mobile number, consists of the brief question, “is it okay if our church makes contact with you by text message?” I said okay, and later that day received a link to this page.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/legal/privacy-notice-missionary-eea?lang=eng&_r=1&country=go
Rather than asking for consent, the page apparently assumes that consent has already been provided verbally to the missionaries. This page states that if you “express interest” and “establish contact” with missionaries the following information, if provided during that contact, will be stored and shared with other missionaries:
Contact and personal information
- First and last name
- Street address (including country of residence)
- Phone numbers
- Email addresses
- Age range
- Gender
- Social profile names
- Preferred language
- How contact was initiated (referral, street contacting, self-referred, and so forth)
- Status in relation to the Church (for example, member or not member)
- General information about the person’s background and Church-related interests
- If a person chooses to stop engaging with missionaries, the reason why (for example, no longer interested)
Which strikes me as an extensive array of data stored on the basis of a very brief process of consent. Other information on attendance and engagement with the church may also be recorded, it says, for a period of up to two years following the latest meaningful contact.
By contrast JWs in the UK seem to have been instructed not to request or gather any data at all, except for the brief mention of the fact that you can give your own contact details to the householder if they wish to contact you.
Concluson: Mormons seem to be much more organised to deal with the new data protection rules and, if they have interpreted the rules correctly, and are in compliance with them, it appears not to be any great barrier to them collecting and sharing lots of information from potential converts. That being the case, why are JWs acting as if the new data rules mean an absolute end to the collection any meaningful data on the ministry?