Actual Policy on Putting Church Information In Outside Applications

So many times I have been told that most of what (at least some) bishoprics are doing to better minister to their congregations (due to the severe limitations of LCR) is against church policy but what policies specifically (yes I've looked at the handbook).

If the YW President and I (Ward Clerk) construct a Google Sheet that is limited access to just the two of us and that Google Sheet contains youth member names and MRNs in order to efficiently/effectively conduct a 5th Sunday youth class on family history, what specific policy have we broken?

If the bishopric in a ward constructs Google Sheets/Docs in order to track ministering efforts in the bishopric and within the ward council, and those online documents are limited in being shared to only ward council members who could look up that information anyway but the Sheet/Doc allows us to add notes, make assignments, and add myriad other useful information LCR doesn't allow for, what policy has been broken?

Also, if none of this is allowed, and others are following policy in it's 'pure' form, what are you doing to effectively minister in your wards because I can say that about 90% of the work we do is off some external collaboration medium and it is supported by the information in LCR...not the other way around.

Technology Standards

I found it by going to clerksupport.churchofjesuschrist.org > Expand Meetinghouse Technology > Standards - Technology.

The document is dated as it still talks about MLS instead of LCR, but given it's still linked to current pages, I'd consider it to still be a current policy.

4.8.3  The use of MLS data and membership information in third-party software is prohibited, whether obtained from inside or outside a meetinghouse.  

4.8.4  The use of cloud-based services for storing and/or backing up MLS or any membership-related data is prohibited.  

I think that last one would certainly go against having a Google Docs sheet with MRNs. What age group are we talking about? If it's Juniors and Seniors and it was my ward, I'd start asking questions about how long you'll keep padding the corners of life. Perhaps the best lesson to give is that action (or perhaps in this case, inaction) has consequences. They're old enough to start taking responsibility for themselves.

I'll also note that while FamilySearch is a separate account from one's Church Account, you can log into FamilySearch with a Church Account. Just click on the Church logo first. If they already have their church account memorized, they're good to go.

tonynocchi wrote: Tue Apr 01, 2025 1:21 pm If the YW President and I (Ward Clerk) construct a Google Sheet that is limited access to just the two of us and that Google Sheet contains youth member names and MRNs in order to efficiently/effectively conduct a 5th Sunday youth class on family history, what specific policy have we broken?

This would be contrary to General Handbook, 38.8.3, which states;

Ward and stake leaders should not store or share confidential Church information outside of Church-provided applications, systems, or internet services. Examples of confidential Church information include a person’s:

• Membership status.
• Temporal needs.
• Other personal information that is not publicly available.

The membership record number falls under the first and third bullets.

The YW President does not have access through any authorized Church system to any member's MRN. General Handbook, 33.8, states;

Leaders and clerks are to safeguard Church records by handling, storing, and disposing of them in a way that protects the privacy of individuals. Leaders ensure that information that is gathered from members is:

• Limited to what the Church requires.
• Used only for approved Church purposes.
• Given only to those who are authorized to use it.

It is that last bullet that tells me that if anyone does not have access to MRNs through approved Church systems that as a clerk you are obligated to not provide that information to them.

Since I am not the authority on handling member MRNs I recommend following General Handbook, 0.4. If your bishop does not have the answer, then he can counsel with your stake president.

Okay, I stand corrected. The church would rather drown in administrative burden instead of use tools to effectively minister to several hundred members in a ward.

I'd love to see what other wards are doing to follow policy and be efficient/effective, because none of the last five I've been in are following policy.

tonynocchi wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 9:38 am The church would rather drown in administrative burden instead of use tools to effectively minister to several hundred members in a ward.

I think it is more a matter of privacy and legality. Protecting personal data is not always as easy as it seems. And there may be consequences to letting that data escape that I do not believe are understood by most members.

lajackson wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 10:44 am

tonynocchi wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 9:38 am The church would rather drown in administrative burden instead of use tools to effectively minister to several hundred members in a ward.

I think it is more a matter of privacy and legality. Protecting personal data is not always as easy as it seems. And there may be consequences to letting that data escape that I do not believe are understood by most members.

It's a matter of legality so that the Church doesn't get sued. But rather than provide solutions or alternatives the Church provides a system that is severely flawed and leaders at various levels resort to using other tools (in violation of church policy) to make the best of what limited time they have away from their jobs and families. If the Church wants us to reduce our efficiency by quite a bit, I'm sure not the one to get in the way.

tonynocchi wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 12:30 pm

lajackson wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 10:44 am I think it is more a matter of privacy and legality. Protecting personal data is not always as easy as it seems. And there may be consequences to letting that data escape that I do not believe are understood by most members.

It's a matter of legality so that the Church doesn't get sued. But rather than provide solutions or alternatives the Church provides a system that is severely flawed and leaders at various levels resort to using other tools (in violation of church policy)

I suspect the issue is if the church did propose any options, and it ended up going sideways, the church would still be sued because they suggested it.

tonynocchi wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 9:38 am The church would rather drown in administrative burden instead of use tools to effectively minister to several hundred members in a ward.

I'm sure that's not true. Unfortunately it's all to easy to sacrifice information security for the sake of convenience. Whenever someone wants to put sensitive information somewhere other than their own computer, I remind them that "the cloud" is just surrendering your data to someone else's computer and you effectively relinquish any control of it once it's there. I'm actually impressed that the Church has guidelines in the handbook that actually attempt to keep a lid on it, even though I'm sure it's almost an impossible task to enforce.

The main way I've seen information about specific members shared to support ministering is during in-person conversation in ministering interviews and ward council meeting. But I have been in some wards that keep spreadsheets of various types.

ambldsorg wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 1:30 pm

tonynocchi wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 9:38 am The church would rather drown in administrative burden instead of use tools to effectively minister to several hundred members in a ward.

I'm sure that's not true. Unfortunately it's all to easy to sacrifice information security for the sake of convenience. Whenever someone wants to put sensitive information somewhere other than their own computer, I remind them that "the cloud" is just surrendering your data to someone else's computer and you effectively relinquish any control of it once it's there. I'm actually impressed that the Church has guidelines in the handbook that actually attempt to keep a lid on it, even though I'm sure it's almost an impossible task to enforce.

I feel that it is true. The Church has given us LCR which is largely useless in a Ward Council setting and frequently problematic (just look at posts on this forum). The interesting thing is that the system the church provides violates the very guidelines they set out. Technology Standards paragraph 4.8.3 states: "The use of MLS data and membership information in third-party software is prohibited, whether obtained from inside or outside a meetinghouse. " By it's own definition and the General Handbook (33.6), every time I send someone an email through LCR I am 'violating' the guideline through the Church system because at the bottom of every email is some of my "MLS data" now present in their third-party email software.

The flip side to this is the Technology Standards are not official Church policy as stated in the first paragraph on that page. The General Handbook provides more latitude and if the bishop is fine with what we are doing, I'm fine with it too. Enforcing the Technology Standards would be an impossible task to enforce. In the various wards I've been in, in the last 15 years, none of them have followed it and in at least two of those I know the stake level didn't follow it either.

sbradshaw wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 2:05 pm The main way I've seen information about specific members shared to support ministering is during in-person conversation in ministering interviews and ward council meeting. But I have been in some wards that keep spreadsheets of various types.

This is happening. Then it is getting put into another format (e.g. Google Sheets/Google Docs) so that additional collaboration can happen, notes can be added, concerns can be noted, progress can be annotated, etc.... So multiple ward council members could be addressing multiple aspects of ministering for a family and providing updates that aren't getting buried in text chains, lost in email inboxes, held up dependent on multiple phone calls, or delayed until the next in-person meeting (which due to General Conference this weekend and people out of town for spring break won't be until April 13th).

tonynocchi wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 10:45 pm By it's own definition and the General Handbook (33.6), every time I send someone an email through LCR I am 'violating' the guideline through the Church system because at the bottom of every email is some of my "MLS data" now present in their third-party email software.

I think that largely depends on what kind of information is being shared via email. I think that using LCR to send out ward announcements and other similar items would not violate anything. The email addresses are not necessarily to be considered "sensitive" information in my opinion so the question boils down to the contents of the messages. Should LCR be used to send out an email to the Ward Council that "so and so is struggling with adultery"; I don't think so personally but then I'm in a position of needing to send that kind of information? Indeed anything to do with email should be considered insecure unless E2E encryption is being used.

What should the Church do about it? Develop a secure and private notification system that can be used for "internal" communications only? Who would use it? Well, there's Circles, but it's trammeled by the fact that it's only available on "smart" devices that can use "apps".

The General Handbook provides more latitude and if the bishop is fine with what we are doing, I'm fine with it too. Enforcing the Technology Standards would be an impossible task to enforce.

And that might be alright too. Indeed as I pointed out earlier, it is hard to enforce. But knowledge is power and having awareness of what the handbook and policy are can empower one to make better decisions when faced with difficult choices. In the end, I suppose one can just claim that one was following the line of authority.

ambldsorg wrote: Thu Apr 03, 2025 8:50 am

tonynocchi wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 10:45 pm By it's own definition and the General Handbook (33.6), every time I send someone an email through LCR I am 'violating' the guideline through the Church system because at the bottom of every email is some of my "MLS data" now present in their third-party email software.

I think that largely depends on what kind of information is being shared via email. I think that using LCR to send out ward announcements and other similar items would not violate anything. The email addresses are not necessarily to be considered "sensitive" information in my opinion so the question boils down to the contents of the messages. Should LCR be used to send out an email to the Ward Council that "so and so is struggling with adultery"; I don't think so personally but then I'm in a position of needing to send that kind of information? Indeed anything to do with email should be considered insecure unless E2E encryption is being used.

What should the Church do about it? Develop a secure and private notification system that can be used for "internal" communications only? Who would use it? Well, there's Circles, but it's trammeled by the fact that it's only available on "smart" devices that can use "apps".

The General Handbook provides more latitude and if the bishop is fine with what we are doing, I'm fine with it too. Enforcing the Technology Standards would be an impossible task to enforce.

And that might be alright too. Indeed as I pointed out earlier, it is hard to enforce. But knowledge is power and having awareness of what the handbook and policy are can empower one to make better decisions when faced with difficult choices. In the end, I suppose one can just claim that one was following the line of authority.

To the first point, the Church Technology Standards make no distinction. It states, "The use of MLS data and membership information in third-party software is prohibited, whether obtained from inside or outside a meetinghouse." According to the General Handbook, your name and contact information are part of your membership information. The contact information on every bulletin I've ever seen for key leaders in a ward, also against the Church Technology Standards. It's either a standard or it's not.

What should the church do about it? Well, it should either clarify the standards or develop a system (improvements to or in conjunction with LCR) that meets the standard and is viable to help the work of Ward Councils. For me the clarification of "this is not official Church policy" is what I'm going with because multiple leaders in the 'chain of command' above me are disregarding 4.8.3 and 4.8.4.

Note that the Handbook "provides guidance for general and local Church leaders" (section 0.1) As such, it's not binding on Church Headquarters. Those at CHQ have to go though an approval process that no doubt includes legal as well as either First Presidency and/or Presiding Bishopric.

The whole point of having an email address is to send that person email. Contact information can be disseminated in limited amounts (see the section on directories).

Definitely an issue that will continue to be discussed, given the specific Church guidance already listed in this thread, and the corresponding questions that arise when trying to follow that guidance in our callings. I personally consider a lot of the discussion to revolve around what makes things more efficient, such as when Church restrictions prohibit the direct sharing of certain data with different leaders or members. So those with data access are required to constantly be the middlemen between the Church data and those who need help performing their callings. Manageable, but quite frustrating for all involved, even when you understand the stated reasons the Church has for data restrictions.

Other discussions revolve around what data is actually private, which can vary from location to location based on local laws. The guidance on "personal info not publicly available elsewhere" can help, but there's always gray area around this topic.

One aspect I've always found challenging is information retention regarding Temporal Needs (GHB 38.8.31). A lot of dedicated time and effort goes into diagnosing and then ministering to member needs, and there's almost always multiple people involved in support efforts which can span months, years, and multiple sets of local leaders. I'm uncertain of any effective way to manage and share private details about these needs and ongoing efforts, without digitally storing them outside the Church's systems.

Given the unlikelihood (but one can always hope!) of the Church giving additional policy regarding this anytime soon, I agree that the best approach is to first study the Handbook (and other Church docs) to understand Church policy. And then openly talk with our priesthood leader about how we propose to fulfill our calling, describing policies we've found, and why we feel we need to make adaptations. Counseling together provides an additional method for the Lord's inspiration to guide us at the local level -- helping us avoid unforeseen potential consequences, and also adapting our efforts to our specific local needs.