General Data Protection Regulation and religion

Recently I’ve attended to the Data for Development Festival. I’ve listened and talked to people who use data to improve lives, fight inequality, and promote environmental sustainability.
It inspired me to write this article. It triggered the waterfall of thoughts and ideas which I will be developing during upcoming weeks.

Will the new GDPR legislation help people to opt out from Catholic Church in Poland in a civilized way and enable society to be truly represented in official statistics?

Do you know that according to official statistics 90% of Poles are Catholics?

Impressive, right?

The only problem is that the data is not exactly reflecting facts. But not many people think about it, they just take it for the face value.

What about the numbers? Official statistics (from Institute of Statistics of the Catholic Church)are implying that Catholics are all the baptized people (in Catholic faith). Considering the fact, that in Poland children are baptized usually before the first birthday… how many of them identify as Catholics in grown-up life?
According to the Central Statistical Office (CBOS) census from 2011 – 87%.

But…

While in the form everyone was asked about gender, age, marital status, education etc. religion was optional and in the end, the Institute used data from Institute of Statistics of the Catholic Church which as I mentioned is using the number of all people baptized.

But…

Many of us, and I am in that group, do not identify as Catholics and do not want to be counted as those. There might be various reasons, but it doesn’t matter, we just don’t.

Currently Roman Catholic bishops in Poland has got big power and are a real threat to women’s rights, (not even mentioning LGBT minorities) what was recently quite widely noticed.

You can erase your data from Catholic Church statistics — you may say.

I would love to,

but…

The process of opting out from CC is quite a thing… a little theatre I would say.
From official point of view, to cut the long story short, you need to get the original certificate of baptism in the church you were baptized, go to the parish in the area you are registered (to the address written in your official ID- if you are Polish you are obliged by law to have one) and go there in person with one witnesses — (not so long ago, before February 2016, you needed two witnesses and two visits to be sure you’re not making hasty decision).
You need 3 copies of a document where you describe your reasons why you want to leave cozy arms of CC. Fingers crossed that priest who was the director of this play will remember about updating official data and send the message further. Quite often, they just write down stuff in their notebooks and you may feel that you’ve been crossed out but you’re still counted in and you need to spend some time and effort to opt-out successfully.

Why haven’t I done it?

I do refuse to take part in this theatre. When I was younger I didn’t have that chance.

This is why the GDPR gives hope.

I hope that the new GDPR legislation which is about to come into effect at the end of May will affect everyone (CC included) and I will be able to take control over my data and opt out from official Catholic statistics in a civilized way.

I want to update my data according to facts, not history. Moreover, I do not want CC to use me as a weapon against me and in general against women’s rights.

With data we can make good. By revealing the true state of faith in Polish society we can show it’s real face and diversity which is not visible in official statistics. We can support marginalized groups to be seen and taken into consideration.

The fact is, if something isn’t shown in the data, it’s invisible, but it doesn’t mean it does not exist. Through data we should be able to hear all the voices, not only one.

We need to remember, that the democracy is the voice of majority, but with respect the voice and rights of the minority.

Data nowadays is a currency. Is very powerful and it’s manipulation may be a threat to the society. This is why we really need legislation which will not only protect us from spam but also will help us to be ourselves and be truly represented.

I wonder how effective this legislation will be in Poland, where bishops are telling the government what to do, how to enforce the law or like recently with anti-abortion law, how and when they should make it tougher.

But this is the topic which I will explore soon.

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UPDATE 19.06.2018

Unfortunately Polish government gave another privilege to the Polish Catholic Church and they don’t have to worry about GDPR (called RODO in Polish law). They have special treatment and can do whatever they want.

What are the consequences?

• You can’t be forgotten, even if you are an apostate (officially left CC)
• You may need to pay to see what data they hold on you
• Unauthorized people can have access to all your details like name, place of birth, house address, and more sensitive like political views, political party membership, long term illnesses, name of parents, even name of biological parents (if you’re adopted).

There is officially no protection of Polish citizens’ data held by Polish Catholic Church.