By Tim Adams
We live in a time where it seems there is a new data breach every other month and it’s easy to turn a blind eye to these events when they don’t affect us. However, when these breaches happen, sometimes millions of people have their private information exposed and this can lead to dramatic consequences in their personal lives.
Best case, their names and contact information are sold to data brokers and ad agencies and they see an increase in junk mail and spam emails and texts. Worst case, their identities are stolen and they are left to deal with the very real consequences of loans, credit lines, and the like being taken out in their names.
As church leaders, what are we doing to protect the information of our members? What are we doing to protect identities and privacy for those that come into our churches?
Things You Should Think About
This might not be a topic that you have thought of, but it’s one that should be on our minds, particularly for those that use online giving, live stream their services, post pictures of church events on social media and the like. Do you know which of your members might be hiding from a partner due to domestic violence? Do you know which of your members or people coming to your services might have a history of crimes against minors?
I have written here before about the importance of protecting our members, particularly children, from being blasted out to the Internet without proper permissions and discussions with parents, but this article is about the larger issue and principle of privacy and whether those who enter our churches should have an expectation of privacy from the leadership.
I am certain that you can appreciate the gravity of being able to protect yourself from online pirates; those groups and individuals who prey on society to make a buck. They really are no different than street muggers who steal from you; the primary difference is that these thieves do so without your knowledge – hacking into supposedly secure databases to steal user information, passwords, contact information, banking information and anything they can get their hands on that would have value to others.
We have been dealing with identity thieves for decades, and while their methods have increased in sophistication, their primary purpose has not. But we have new threats in the form of AI, which can access images across the Internet and use them to “create” artwork for user queries. This means that you could be browsing through the Internet and suddenly come across your own face, or the face of your child, being used in an ad for a product or service. No permission was given on your part and yet there it is. Of course, this is a fairly mild version of what could happen but we won’t discuss the darker uses of AI creative tools here but you can likely imagine how the use of deepfake software can be used for evil purposes.
How do we protect our members and visitors while still being able to post images and videos of our services and events? There are several options available to your church, each with their own pros and cons and you will have to determine if one, or any, make sense for your church.
Private Members app
There are solutions readily available, including one covered in last month’s magazine called StayTouch, that offer private, secure community management and engagement. Each platform has its pros and cons, but the biggest potential con for this option is that your content is only shared inside the private group. This means that if one of your church’s goals is to outreach to the Internet at large, this solution might require people to join your group first before they get access to your content.
Of course, you can provide a hybrid approach where members can use this private and secure platform for communication between each other and leadership, while services are streamed out to the Internet and/or posted online for on-demand playback. You can still maintain your social media channels and post content to those outlets, but that content is filtered through an internal privacy process to ensure that it meets certain criteria before being shared.
However, it’s important to remember that many of the popular messaging platforms do not offer full privacy inside the app; some allow all users inside a group to see each other’s phone numbers, or don’t offer a comprehensive feature set aside from messaging so make sure to do your homework on what exactly you’re getting.
I am certain that you can appreciate the gravity of being able to protect yourself from online pirates hacking into supposedly secure databases to steal user information, passwords, contact information, banking information and anything they can get their hands on that would have value to others.
Private Social Media group
You can utilize your existing social media channels and potentially create a private group for members only. While being fairly similar to the private members group option above, this is built into the social platforms, which means they very likely have access to what is shared inside your group and thus, could shut your group down if anything is posted that violates their often vague and ever-changing community guidelines. I am personally not a fan of other people having control of my communities, but this might be the most cost-effective and easily achievable option for your church.
Bear in mind, though, you also don’t have knowledge of or control over whether the developer and/or AI will have access to your group, so sharing content here could also not protect you as much as the app-based solution listed above.
You might think that email is a more secure method of communicating and by and large it likely is, though it can be hacked like any other solution. The main issue with email is that everyone is so inundated with emails every day that they are easy to ignore and when we get dozens of emails in a discussion thread, particularly one that doesn’t apply to us, we tend to tune it out or even send it to Junk mail because it’s irrelevant to our lives.
Email is now considered “old school” in terms of communication in that it’s not real time like messaging solutions are. It also has fairly low engagement rates, often below 10%, which is a staggering statistic. Frankly, it’s not really a great tool to use for ongoing communication with your members and it lacks the ability to easily share media content other than pictures and even that is limited to certain file sizes, depending on which email provider you use.
Text Messaging
Likely the most secure form of keeping in touch, how many of us have been added to a texting group, only to reach the point of irritation and frustration at the sheer level of notifications such groups often provide? While texting does tick a lot of the boxes we want in terms of privacy and security, the amount of texting that can happen in these groups can lead one to insanity trying to keep up and it’s often difficult to keep track of the conversation when you have to step away to work, do chores, look after the kids, etc.
Is there a perfect solution? No, there isn’t, but there are many, many options out there, all promising amazing capabilities and features. The trick is to find the right one for your church and that means internal discussions about privacy, security and how to protect your members.
Maybe you need to send a photo release form to all your members to ensure you have their permission to share their images online.
Perhaps you post signs at all entrance doors to your sanctuary/worship space indicating that events inside are live streamed and/or recorded and by entering, individuals are consenting to having their likeness captured and/or live streamed (please make sure to provide alternative seating areas for those who do not wish to be on camera).
You might consider developing an internal process and/or policy for all content shared online that determines if a minor is in the frame, it is only shared inside a members-only group or area of your website. Your children’s story doesn’t have to be live streamed or recorded…you can have a graphic or pre-produced video play during that time to protect your children and youth from being shown online.
There are many options and solutions for protecting our members and visitors, but I would strongly encourage you to lead the discussion in your local church as this is an incredibly important topic and one we should be leading the charge on! I would also strongly suggest that you share your concerns with your members so they can provide comment and suggestions on a solution that makes them comfortable, as well. In this way, we are all keeping online privacy and security top of mind, not just for the church, but for ourselves, as well!
Tim Adams spent over 20 years volunteering in church technical ministry and now focuses on helping small churches achieve technical excellence through equipment upgrades, training, sharing best practices and teaching leadership how to cast God-sized vision.
