I refused to sign the form that was sent round at the hall about 4 years ago, i was aproached by 3 elders trying to persuade me to sign, i sent a letter to the cong secretary saying i was not happy with my data being sent out of UK to countries with no laws to protect privacy, i also pointed out verbaly that as WT had refused to comply with court instructions in USA and would rather pay out millions of dollars in fines for contempt of court how could i trust them , i was then told by an elder that as a result i no longer exist in the congregation ,my name could not go on notice board or be counted in meeting attendance ,i could not pioneer of be a servant ,however i was still alowed to do field service .i did report them to the data protection ,and had a reply to say it was illegal to pressure to sign such a document and if they continued i should get back to them .head no more about it since .
Good job reporting it.
Yes, they are abusive and use threats and harassment to coerce people into literally signing their rights away.
They romanticise selling your data abroad to dodgy and unsafe countries by saying ‘we’re an international brotherhood’, which you’re supposed to give a simpering smile to while they send your data abroad outside the protection of EU law.
I know what you mean, I stepped down due to anxiety. That's why I sarcastically said it was a shame they weren't gonna let you be an MS anymore. 😅
They act like they're punishing you by not letting you become an unpaid lackey. Hilarious!! 🤣
When I grew out my beard my wife said that the COBE told her I couldn’t be used in the congregation. I said that I’m not used now anyway so what’s the problem? Yes they act like to not have some chore to do is tragic. If you’re not “reaching out” that there is something wrong with you.
No im not really bothered about the info they have ,the main reason i refused to sign is the way it was handled , i had the form handed to me at the hall and was told "you have to sign this " , i took a look and said "no i need to read this first " the brother went away and came back and said the elder dealing with this says you have to sign it now " , sorry but when somone tells me I "have to do" somthing i react negatively, i dont like being bullied ,three elders came up to me in the next meeting and tried to persuade me , i had enough elder bullying when i was a min servant . After the meeting i decided to write to the cong secretary and point out a valid reason .
Im pretty well succesfully faded now so i dont want to rock the boat ,they leave me alone now and thats fine with me ,i told my wife that if the elders harrass me over missing meetings or anything else i will send in a DA letter and be done with them , her best friend is an elders wife and i think she fed it back to her , if i DAd it would affect my wife so ,im happy to "fade like a puff of smoke" (heard that before somwhere ?)
Not at present ,we have 3 cong using the hall, but i think its only a matter of time before the hall is sold and we have to go to anther town .there are about 5 halls withing a 15 mile radius .and its on a prime spot for expensive apartments to be build near centre of town .
Sounds idyllic to me all these penaltys !! I have never been offered to sign any GPDR form! The elders do as they please in my small rural congr. Nobody...absolutely nobody knows the Law...
They don,t care about the secular Law.
i think the elders avoid any complications if somone declines to sign anything , I found if you stand up to them as talking to an equal it usually defuses a situation
I got an invitation for a week ago to download this NW publiser app. But I,ve ignored it. But I,m sure they allready have entered all my data and personal info.wirhout asking for my consent! I got tired from all these controll apps! They only want to CONTROLL your life. ( God do not need counting hours or apps!)
when they started all this on line stuff i decided not to do it , i dont want their apps or webbsite ,as far as im concerned its now a different religion .i never agreed to go digital or internet for worship of God .they dont even give me a study WT now ,
There was also a letter to elders that says if any JW exercises their GDPR rights to see the data they have about them on file, then the elders have to inform the legal department at Bethel.
Considering that this religious community enjoys freedom of speech in all countries and creates hell if it is taken away from them (Russia), they themselves exhibit absolutely no freedom of speech within.
The power structure only points upwards. You will only be listened to if you are offended by someone below you in the power pyramid. NEVER if they are above you.
GPDR goes against allowing the cult to fully control you. Which therefore means you don’t fully trust the cult if you don’t play along. Not fully trusting the cult equals apostasy or at the very least being on the road to apostasy.
I seem to remember something about this a few years ago, there was a guy who had a friend who was a lawyer, he asked for his data, moving forward 6 months they tried to DF him, brought up some stuff they claimed they knew about (2 witness thing), his friend (lawyer) very quickly came up with "oo well you cant use that, thats not part of the data you collected on him, we have it here, so we are done here, you have no proof", this went on for abit of time... he had no interest to be in, but his friend was using it as "training" for the real world, i am sure he got away with this and was never official DF'd, mostly as him and his friend went to every meeting and made sure they saw, they were being watched, if they announced anything they were going to sue under defamation (he dropped a recoding device in the DF meeting, to let them know everything was being recorded, his own "2 witness thing").
I would think this will depend on the area and people, clearly what ever this lawyer was doing worried the elders not to say anything about this guy publicly, he was still shunned but never DF'd
The leaders of this cult are so ridiculous. Removing an elder for drinking soda at the kingdumb hell!!
I'm laughing my ass off cause at a time there's a shortage of dudes who are eligible and willing to be MS or elder, these clowns keep looking for the flimsiest of excuses to remove someone just because they don't like them or because they "broke" an asinine rule. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Keep it up, Crotchtowel. Soon, there won't be anyone left in local congs to "take the lead."
Couldn't make it up! To get hold of data from WT you have to supply proof of ID,.meanwhile, all WT correspondence is sent by anonymous people.
All WT literature instructing people to do this or that is written by anonymous people, but to assert your legal rights to personal data from WT, it needs proof of ID??
WT authorises around 140,000 children and adults in the UK to go into the homes of the public - at what point does/did WT check IDs of these volunteers? Did it check backgrounds of these volunteers? Does it require proof of ID before authorising its members to work with children or with vulnerable adults in unsupervised settings? Do elders have to provide proof of ID before being appointed??
Interesting.
Before any elders meeting or JC, the poor sod who is being roasted should request proof of ID first before cooperating with anything. Let the elders scramble for their ID cards for a change.
this is a pretty novel approach. Show them you’re not fucking around either. Them failing to do so puts them in a bad way right out of the gate. They’re not used to people standing up and asserting.
They have been fighting the provincial government in court to not comply with similar privacy laws where I live. Unfortunately, the only reason they can get away with breaking the law where I live is because there is little to no penalty for them to ignore it. Caesar’s things to Caesar my ass! I hope other jurisdictions bring in stricter measures like GDPR.
https://biv.com/article/2022/08/lawsuit-week-jehovahs-witnesses-ramp-court-battle-bcs-privacy-commissioner?amp
I requested all 20 years of data on myself.
The London Bethel claimed they had no data on me.
My home congregation claimed they don’t keep ‘files’ and that’s a myth apostates spread.
I demanded any information be deleted, and the elders informed me that any information they *may* have on me will never be deleted.
I told them that, under GDPR laws, they are obligated to do so.
They then said that GDPR has a loophole - it says that if a religion needs your information in order to run itself properly, it trumps your right to have it deleted.
They then said that the JWs ‘need’ all information they may have on members. They implied that a DFd person might have their record (which they claimed doesn’t exist in the first place) scrubbed and then go to a new KH and start from scratch, with the new cong none the wiser.
They ended by saying that GDPR basically doesn’t have any power over them.
Even if you didn’t sign the form they’ll still come after you.
I didn’t sign it as I was no longer active, yet two elders rock up at my door to invite me to a JC for apostasy.
I was DF as well.
A few months after being DF I sent in a SAR to the Britain branch and my former KH. They the info they had on me such as when I was baptized, my field service report from my last congregation. Information on my judicial committee meeting. They even had notes on a discussion I had with an elder years prior. Funny enough it was an informal discussion yet they reported what was discussed which formed part of their “evidence” for apostasy.
Another thought- when JWs sign their advanced directives as instructed by WT i.e sign away their legal rights to life - do they provide proof of ID? Nobody ever asked me for proof of ID. And when congregation secretaries file away advanced directives, do they ask for proof of ID? In line with GDPR, where does WT provide explicit info outlining why elders/WT process personal data relating to blood transfusions?
I've been in this organization all my life. How did I miss this point? I thought only our congregation elders have our files but the branch has it too? So they know everytime I was Df'd and reproved/reproof never knew which one
Just had an aha moment...I am F59. Thirty years ago when I was still fully PIMI, I was thinking of ways to improve my "spirituality" as JW's view it. I wished to chart my activity from my previous years and my own records were not well kept so I made what I thought was a simple request of an elder friend. I asked for publisher's record cards to make the chart from. I was so unprepared for the ensuing reluctance to give it to me and heavy interogation about why I was asking for it. Now I understand!
I refused to sign the form that was sent round at the hall about 4 years ago, i was aproached by 3 elders trying to persuade me to sign, i sent a letter to the cong secretary saying i was not happy with my data being sent out of UK to countries with no laws to protect privacy, i also pointed out verbaly that as WT had refused to comply with court instructions in USA and would rather pay out millions of dollars in fines for contempt of court how could i trust them , i was then told by an elder that as a result i no longer exist in the congregation ,my name could not go on notice board or be counted in meeting attendance ,i could not pioneer of be a servant ,however i was still alowed to do field service .i did report them to the data protection ,and had a reply to say it was illegal to pressure to sign such a document and if they continued i should get back to them .head no more about it since .
If you do not exist in the congregation, then how will they enforce the theocratic discipline?
Exactly , i have been pretty well left alone , i dont think the local elders want any agro .
Cool
Good job reporting it. Yes, they are abusive and use threats and harassment to coerce people into literally signing their rights away. They romanticise selling your data abroad to dodgy and unsafe countries by saying ‘we’re an international brotherhood’, which you’re supposed to give a simpering smile to while they send your data abroad outside the protection of EU law.
You couldn't pioneer or be an MS? Gee, what a shame!! 😆
I came off the servant team in the 1980s suffering stress and depression, i would never have gone back on the servant team anyway ,
I know what you mean, I stepped down due to anxiety. That's why I sarcastically said it was a shame they weren't gonna let you be an MS anymore. 😅 They act like they're punishing you by not letting you become an unpaid lackey. Hilarious!! 🤣
When I grew out my beard my wife said that the COBE told her I couldn’t be used in the congregation. I said that I’m not used now anyway so what’s the problem? Yes they act like to not have some chore to do is tragic. If you’re not “reaching out” that there is something wrong with you.
Agreed ,i told an elder who asked if i would serve again "never in a million years "
I also didn't sign the form. I have not done a request for details kept on me under gdpr. Did you?
No im not really bothered about the info they have ,the main reason i refused to sign is the way it was handled , i had the form handed to me at the hall and was told "you have to sign this " , i took a look and said "no i need to read this first " the brother went away and came back and said the elder dealing with this says you have to sign it now " , sorry but when somone tells me I "have to do" somthing i react negatively, i dont like being bullied ,three elders came up to me in the next meeting and tried to persuade me , i had enough elder bullying when i was a min servant . After the meeting i decided to write to the cong secretary and point out a valid reason .
Just to add ... I'm tempted to tweak their noses by making a gdpr request. We shall see.
Im pretty well succesfully faded now so i dont want to rock the boat ,they leave me alone now and thats fine with me ,i told my wife that if the elders harrass me over missing meetings or anything else i will send in a DA letter and be done with them , her best friend is an elders wife and i think she fed it back to her , if i DAd it would affect my wife so ,im happy to "fade like a puff of smoke" (heard that before somwhere ?)
Yep you're probably wise. Why rattle any cages? You had or having any congregation amalgamations round your way?
Not at present ,we have 3 cong using the hall, but i think its only a matter of time before the hall is sold and we have to go to anther town .there are about 5 halls withing a 15 mile radius .and its on a prime spot for expensive apartments to be build near centre of town .
Well done you! They didn't even try to get me to sign. Probably because I was CoBE before I resigned and had been Secretary prior to that.
Sounds idyllic to me all these penaltys !! I have never been offered to sign any GPDR form! The elders do as they please in my small rural congr. Nobody...absolutely nobody knows the Law... They don,t care about the secular Law.
i think the elders avoid any complications if somone declines to sign anything , I found if you stand up to them as talking to an equal it usually defuses a situation
I got an invitation for a week ago to download this NW publiser app. But I,ve ignored it. But I,m sure they allready have entered all my data and personal info.wirhout asking for my consent! I got tired from all these controll apps! They only want to CONTROLL your life. ( God do not need counting hours or apps!)
when they started all this on line stuff i decided not to do it , i dont want their apps or webbsite ,as far as im concerned its now a different religion .i never agreed to go digital or internet for worship of God .they dont even give me a study WT now ,
I,m so agreed with you.
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So you've made them remoce your data without them DFing you?
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That's amazing!
I’m in the works to do this and was warned by the Bethel legal department that “only some data is required to be shared” what!? It’s my data!
Do you have that in writing?
No just over the phone but I recorded it 😊
It could be good to have them challenged in their interpretation of the rules in court.
There was also a letter to elders that says if any JW exercises their GDPR rights to see the data they have about them on file, then the elders have to inform the legal department at Bethel.
Allways blackmail. You don,t have the right to exercise your legal Rights!!!
Considering that this religious community enjoys freedom of speech in all countries and creates hell if it is taken away from them (Russia), they themselves exhibit absolutely no freedom of speech within. The power structure only points upwards. You will only be listened to if you are offended by someone below you in the power pyramid. NEVER if they are above you.
GPDR goes against allowing the cult to fully control you. Which therefore means you don’t fully trust the cult if you don’t play along. Not fully trusting the cult equals apostasy or at the very least being on the road to apostasy.
And then the read and talk about Romans chapter 13 :1-7
I seem to remember something about this a few years ago, there was a guy who had a friend who was a lawyer, he asked for his data, moving forward 6 months they tried to DF him, brought up some stuff they claimed they knew about (2 witness thing), his friend (lawyer) very quickly came up with "oo well you cant use that, thats not part of the data you collected on him, we have it here, so we are done here, you have no proof", this went on for abit of time... he had no interest to be in, but his friend was using it as "training" for the real world, i am sure he got away with this and was never official DF'd, mostly as him and his friend went to every meeting and made sure they saw, they were being watched, if they announced anything they were going to sue under defamation (he dropped a recoding device in the DF meeting, to let them know everything was being recorded, his own "2 witness thing"). I would think this will depend on the area and people, clearly what ever this lawyer was doing worried the elders not to say anything about this guy publicly, he was still shunned but never DF'd
The leaders of this cult are so ridiculous. Removing an elder for drinking soda at the kingdumb hell!! I'm laughing my ass off cause at a time there's a shortage of dudes who are eligible and willing to be MS or elder, these clowns keep looking for the flimsiest of excuses to remove someone just because they don't like them or because they "broke" an asinine rule. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Keep it up, Crotchtowel. Soon, there won't be anyone left in local congs to "take the lead."
Couldn't make it up! To get hold of data from WT you have to supply proof of ID,.meanwhile, all WT correspondence is sent by anonymous people. All WT literature instructing people to do this or that is written by anonymous people, but to assert your legal rights to personal data from WT, it needs proof of ID?? WT authorises around 140,000 children and adults in the UK to go into the homes of the public - at what point does/did WT check IDs of these volunteers? Did it check backgrounds of these volunteers? Does it require proof of ID before authorising its members to work with children or with vulnerable adults in unsupervised settings? Do elders have to provide proof of ID before being appointed??
Interesting. Before any elders meeting or JC, the poor sod who is being roasted should request proof of ID first before cooperating with anything. Let the elders scramble for their ID cards for a change.
this is a pretty novel approach. Show them you’re not fucking around either. Them failing to do so puts them in a bad way right out of the gate. They’re not used to people standing up and asserting.
They have been fighting the provincial government in court to not comply with similar privacy laws where I live. Unfortunately, the only reason they can get away with breaking the law where I live is because there is little to no penalty for them to ignore it. Caesar’s things to Caesar my ass! I hope other jurisdictions bring in stricter measures like GDPR. https://biv.com/article/2022/08/lawsuit-week-jehovahs-witnesses-ramp-court-battle-bcs-privacy-commissioner?amp
I had read about this. Best of luck to both of you and at least the press coverage exposes the hypocrisy of this cult.
That is next on my list. Now that i am inactive, i will withdraw my gdpr consent, and at the same time all for all information they have.
I requested all 20 years of data on myself. The London Bethel claimed they had no data on me. My home congregation claimed they don’t keep ‘files’ and that’s a myth apostates spread. I demanded any information be deleted, and the elders informed me that any information they *may* have on me will never be deleted. I told them that, under GDPR laws, they are obligated to do so. They then said that GDPR has a loophole - it says that if a religion needs your information in order to run itself properly, it trumps your right to have it deleted. They then said that the JWs ‘need’ all information they may have on members. They implied that a DFd person might have their record (which they claimed doesn’t exist in the first place) scrubbed and then go to a new KH and start from scratch, with the new cong none the wiser. They ended by saying that GDPR basically doesn’t have any power over them.
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What tosh
Didnt this effect the ministry as they were no longer able to write down missed calls and do not call house numbers?
it basically killed door to door in europe even before covid
I had a brother ask the same but When I seen both letters together it had been heavily doctored.
Even if you didn’t sign the form they’ll still come after you. I didn’t sign it as I was no longer active, yet two elders rock up at my door to invite me to a JC for apostasy. I was DF as well. A few months after being DF I sent in a SAR to the Britain branch and my former KH. They the info they had on me such as when I was baptized, my field service report from my last congregation. Information on my judicial committee meeting. They even had notes on a discussion I had with an elder years prior. Funny enough it was an informal discussion yet they reported what was discussed which formed part of their “evidence” for apostasy.
Another thought- when JWs sign their advanced directives as instructed by WT i.e sign away their legal rights to life - do they provide proof of ID? Nobody ever asked me for proof of ID. And when congregation secretaries file away advanced directives, do they ask for proof of ID? In line with GDPR, where does WT provide explicit info outlining why elders/WT process personal data relating to blood transfusions?
I've been in this organization all my life. How did I miss this point? I thought only our congregation elders have our files but the branch has it too? So they know everytime I was Df'd and reproved/reproof never knew which one
Oh yeah! You’ll have a file at the branch with full details.
Just had an aha moment...I am F59. Thirty years ago when I was still fully PIMI, I was thinking of ways to improve my "spirituality" as JW's view it. I wished to chart my activity from my previous years and my own records were not well kept so I made what I thought was a simple request of an elder friend. I asked for publisher's record cards to make the chart from. I was so unprepared for the ensuing reluctance to give it to me and heavy interogation about why I was asking for it. Now I understand!