Restricting permission to give out MRNs

Member record numbers are required for members to create LDS accounts and also on the new donation slips. As far as I know, LDS Tools allows all ward clerks, assistant ward clerks, and bishopric members to see MRNs for each member of the ward.

Having access is not the same as having authority, as a general rule. So my question is, are assistant ward clerks -- finance (aka finance clerks) permitted to give directly to a member their own MRN (or their minor child's MRN). I have heard both yes and no from ward and stake leaders. If there is a written policy, that would help clarify the matter. I searched Chapter 13 of Handbook 1, but did not see any specific statement about it.

Note, I am not asking about giving the member record or the IOS (which also has the MRN). Just the MRN itself.

Thanks.

scottarlo wrote:Having access is not the same as having authority, as a general rule. So my question is, are assistant ward clerks -- finance (aka finance clerks) permitted to give directly to a member their own MRN (or their minor child's MRN).

Assuming the the person has legitimate access to the MRN and not obtaining them by some other method, I'm having a hard time trying to imagine a church-wide policy on who can hand out the MRN to the member. We know the person has access and we know that the member is allowed to get their own MRN.

The only thing I can think of is that the Bishop may decide to organize duties and wants to prevent members from approaching a certain person. An example might be that person is new and may be easily fooled into giving out information to the wrong person. Or perhaps the bishop wants to free that individual for other duties. The bishop may want only certain people to hand out that information and I believe that to be the Bishop's Prerogative. The Handbooks do not go into great detail on what each calling does, and to the extent that it does not go against the Handbook the Bishop can organize things the way he sees fit.

I took a quick look at the Handbook and could not find anything definitive either way.

I'm thinking of the point of view of a "rank and file" member of the ward. If I know that someone else has my membership number but they refuse to give it to me based on some local restriction then that's going to bother me. As a general principle in life, I bristle at unnecessary restrictions. But when it comes to the priesthood in particular, I think there are warnings in the D&C about becoming a control freak (to put it into modern terms). So I would say that if the handbook doesn't give unnecessary restrictions then those who are authorized to have member record numbers can use their good judgment and, of course, should be able to give a member his own number.