[pyuser583]

I’ve read the GDPR has zero impacts on national security/law enforcement. It applies weakly to other state functions.

I’ve also seen cases where GDPR is used against religious groups that have a strong religious justification for keeping lists of believers. Think Orthodox Jews and the Catholic Church, which regard family trees and baptismal certificates as semi-sacred. And kept on paper or scrolls.

Not sure what to think about that. Regulating a sacred scroll like a database table seems wrong.

[tripzilch]

The reason why we're not keeping lists of which people believe what religion, is because such lists were extremely useful to the nazis in WW2 when exterminating Jewish people.

> Think Orthodox Jews

Pretty sure they would remember why this is the case.

> Regulating a sacred scroll like a database table seems wrong.

There is actually no perceivable or material difference between something that is considered "sacred" and that which is not. It really hinges on whether some subset of some splinter of some religion considers it so.

But, I'm not familiar with these cases you mention, I think there's some details left out that should matter. The really weird thing to me, is that a sports club can keep a list of members easily (yes they need to abide by the GDPR but it's not hard), and if somehow a "religious group" can't manage that level of organization, I don't think their opinion on what objects are considered "sacred" should count for much, either.

Another issue is that "religious groups" can have a different opinion of who are their members and who they get to keep data on, and it doesn't matter whether those records are "sacred" or not, according to the GDPR it is not the "religious group", but the people whose data is being kept whose opinion counts. It would be ridiculous otherwise. I had to email a Church to stop tracking me (which happens if you're baptized as a baby), and that should be my choice, it would be insane if they could claim "yeah tough luck, but our records are sacred".

[pyuser583]

I’m thinking more paper and scrolls.

Not to mention things like tombstones or the occasional name carved into buildings - usually related to donors.

The media matters: an email list, a scroll, a name carved into stone, and a tattoo are quite different things.

I feel uncomfortable drawing clear lines, but I feel equally uncomfortable with other people drawing clear lines.

[abustamam]

> There is actually no perceivable or material difference between something that is considered "sacred" and that which is not. It really hinges on whether some subset of some splinter of some religion considers it so.

What? To many people, the Bible is just a book. To Christians its sacred. This doesn't mean it's immutable (the original Bible wasn't in English after all), it just means it's important to them.

For the records, the records themselves could be sacred, but the practical implications of them are not sacred. But if Catholics have a sacred record of everyone who had been baptized at a church, then that should be different from their mailing list. God did not instruct the chrich to email everyone who was ever baptized there. Plus, at some point in the church's age, there will be more dead people on the list of people who were baptized than alive people. It doesn't make sense to send an email blast to more dead people than alive, so they must trim the mailing list every so often.

[DANmode]

Tracking you in what ways?

Thanks.