Does GDPR open up new options for opt out?

Cabaal wrote: »

As per the subject, does anyone know GDPR change anything regarding the ability to opt out from the church or for you to request to have records deleted?

Just curious really,

There's actually two issues there.

1. Does the DDPR change anything regarding the ability to opt out from the church?

Answer: no. The GDPR doesn't regulate the relationship you have or don't have with the church, or with any other body, at all. It's not about relationships between people, or between individuals or groups; it's all about data, information, and how its processed or handled.

Confusion arises because people tend to conflate an event, relationship, etc with documentation or records of the event or relationship. If there's no marriage certificate, are you actually married? If there's no share certificate, are you actually a shareholder? But the mistake here is easily seen when you continue asking such questions. If there's no birth certificate, were you actually born? If there's no death certificate, are you really dead?

Discussion in this area focussed on the Catholic church's view as to the consequences of baptism. Without re-opening the hoary question of whether the Catholic church believes anyone who was ever baptised is forever a member of the Catholic church, for present purposes its enough to note that, whatever the Catholic church's beliefs are, they are not beliefs about the signifcance of baptismal records or registers; they are beliefs about the signficance of baptism. If the Catholic church believes that you are a member on account of having been baptised, it won't cease to believe that if a record of your baptism is erased. You'll still have been baptised.

2. Does the GDPR change anything regarding the ability for you to request to have records deleted?

Yes, since it introduces rules whereby (at the risk of oversimplifying) the default is that you have a right to have your record deleted unless the record keeper can show that the case is within some exception.

There's a couple of issues here. One is that the record of your baptism contains personal information not just about you but also about others - your parents, your godparents - and it can't be processed (which includes deletion) without their consent any more than it can without yours. So unless they are all dead, or unless you can make a joint demand for deletion with those who aren't, there could be a problem here. Not sure how, or if, the Regulation reconciles the competing interests of data subjects as regards the same data.

Another issue is that there's a carve-out for data processing by a "foundation, association or any other not-for-profit body with a political, philosophical, religious or trade union aim" if "the processing relates solely to the members or to former members of the body" and personal data is "not disclosed outside that body without the consent of the data subjects". I think the church would argue hard that its retention of its baptismal records comes within this provision. Whether it does or not, we won't know until somebody fights the case.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Whatever about deletion, what about the right to have the baptismal or other membership record annotated to the effect that Joe Bloggs no longer wishes to be considered a member?

I don't think GDPR helps much here.

There is a "right to rectification", but this only extends to "rectification of inaccurate personal data". Unless you argue that you weren't actually baptised on the day in question, or at the place, or whatever, the data in the baptismal record is not inaccurate, and so there is no right to rectify it.

What you want, I think, is a right to have a record annotated to show that the data subject would object to a particular inference ("he's still a Catholic") being drawn from the data (accurate in itself) contained in the record. I don't think GDPR confers such a right.

There is a separate right to object to "processing" of personal data, and "processing" is widely defined. If the Catholic church was in fact proactively using your baptismal record to claim that you, Hotblack Desiato, were a Catholic, then possibly you could object to their "processing" your personal data in that way. But your remedy wouldn't be having the data deleted or annotated; just having them stop claiming you as a member. And you've no case at all unless you can show they are claiming you as a member in the first place.

(The right to object is really aimed at the use of personal data for direct marketing, so I think you'd need to do a fair bit of shoehorning to get this issue satisfactorily addressed under that heading.)

That's odd, they're very good at destroying records from orphanages etc. when people go looking for them...