Irish Times Notes22 Dec 18

Church of Ireland Notes from ‘The Irish Times’

GDPR & the Church

Christmas, more than any other time of the year, is about communication. As well as proclaiming the good news, there is the visiting old friends, talking on the telephone to relatives in distant parts, and, of course the cards and messages. Not so long ago the cards and messages would all have been hand written but increasingly these greetings are likely to be electronic, raising the increasingly long shadow of data protection. For example, if the bishop has a list of those whom he visits, if the parish secretary has a list of those who are invited to Christmas parties, if the officers of charitable societies have lists of those who need seasonal support, then they need to be conscious of their obligations under the new General Data Protection Regulation. The natural response may be, bah, humbug, but alas it is more serious than that.
 
And so, to help with this, the Representative Church Body and Central Communications Board, chaired by the Bishop of Meath and Kildare, have drawn up three guideline documents to assist dioceses and parishes in complying with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the following areas: data protection & photography, including filming; data protection and mailing lists; and live streaming.

The data protection and photography guidelines cover where consent for photography is or is not needed; getting and recording consent; children and young people; adults at risk; schools events; avoiding a data breach; and retaining data. Sample formats for invitations and notices for events are also provided, as is a notice can be displayed for all events that will be taking place in a parish.

Each of the documents is available in the Parish Resources section of the Church of Ireland website: www.ireland.anglican.org 

In Dublin, St John’s church, Park Avenue, Sandymount, will host their Carols by Candlelight service this evening at 4pm when all are welcome. A collection will be taken up for Capuchin Day Centre and the UNICEF Yemen Appeal. For those in the city centre seeking a break from the last minute Christmas shopping, at 4pm and again at 5pm, in St Patrick’s cathedral, the Choristers, with Michael Lee as narrator, will sing Howard Blake’s timeless tale, The Snowman.

Tomorrow (Sunday) at 3.15pm there will be a Service of Nine Lessons and Carols in St Patrick’s cathedral, Dublin, and the following day the traditional Christmas Eve Service of Nine Lessons and Carols, for which tickets are required, will begin in St Patrick’s at 4pm.  In St Philip’s church, Milltown, there will be a Service of Readings and Carols at 7pm.

On Christmas Day the archbishops and bishops, by tradition preach in their diocesan cathedrals. The Archbishop of Armagh will be in St Patrick’s cathedral, Armagh, where he will be the celebrant and preacher at the 11am Sung Eucharist while the Archbishop of Dublin will be the celebrant at the Midnight Eucharist in Christ Church cathedral (which begins at 11pm) and the preacher at the 11am Christmas Day Eucharist where the cathedral choir will be joined by a brass accompaniment. The Bishop of Cashel, Ferns and Ossory, who has more cathedrals in his jurisdiction than any other of the bishops, will preside and preach in St Lasarian’s cathedral, Old Leighlin, on Christmas morning at 10am. Christmas Day is also one of the days on which the Dean of St Patrick’s preaches in his own cathedral and so Dr William Morton will be the preacher at the Choral Eucharist at 11.15am.