What do Bishops see when they search former members’ names?


Jedi_Nephite
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To make a long story short, I have a in-law who recently claimed to have left the church.  If it turns out to be true, it wouldn’t be a total surprise, but the problem with this particular individual is that he has a history of making things up to get attention.  Another member of the family, who is a bishop of a different ward and stake than the one this individual attends, said that he tried searching him on the church’s database to confirm if it were really true that he left the Church, but was not able to find his name.  However, I find it odd that nothing would come up at all during a search, even if someone had their name removed.

So, my question is, when a bishop does a search for a member of a different ward and stake, but that individual requested to have their name removed from the membership records, what do bishops see?  Does the search really come up empty or does it indicate they are a former member, wished not to be contacted, et cetera?

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Bishops have stewardship over their ward.  Neither they nor the membership clerks who have similar access, can see anything about members in other wards.  Besides the stake-level general stuff that any normal member with a churchofjesuschrist.org account can see.

Stake leadership will be able to see membership details for stake members.

There's no such thing as "Do not contact" functionality in church membership records.  Local units may keep the occasional offline list or something about members who don't want contact.  But Bishops have a scripturally commanded duty to visit and know what's up with members of their flock.  Ask me about the time I went on splits with the bishopric to visit the DoNotContact folks! :) 

It's my understanding that once a name is removed, it's removed.  Nobody can see it any more except for church HQ in Salt Lake.  They tell me church HQ will keep information on former members, specifically if they've done horrible things like molest children or other felonies.  It makes sense they'd do that, because as any smart child predator will tell you, moving around from stake to stake and getting baptized and gaining trust to get access to children, is a pretty easy way of keeping a flow of fresh victims.

(Of course that has nothing to do with your in-law @Jedi_Nephite.  It's just a reason why the church tries to never forget, even if it does everything else possible to protect privacy.)

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When I was a ward clerk, I learned that bishops have access to a global church database that is exclusive to bishops (and probably certain stake leadership callings, I would imagine).  I assume that’s what our relative, who is a bishop, was using.  And there are several reasons that would necessitate the need for bishops to have access to this information.  For one, as you already mentioned, if someone was a pedophile, had their name removed, and then tried to rejoin through a different ward and stake, it would be important to know to protect the ward.  There are also times bishops must contact a member’s relative in an emergency, or a member’s ex-spouse for a sealing cancellation.  The purpose of the database isn’t necessarily for those for whom they have stewardship over, but, rather, to help serve those under their stewardship.

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On 11/26/2022 at 12:40 PM, Jedi_Nephite said:

When I was a ward clerk, I learned that bishops have access to a global church database that is exclusive to bishops 

This is inaccurate. The only resource that Bishops have access to that provides church-wide information is the Church Directory of Leaders (CDOL). As the name indicates, it only provides information about leaders, and is intended to facilitate communication between ward and stake leaders. 

I can think of two ways a bishop might attempt to determine if a person still has a membership record.

  • Initialize a request for their record. They would need to know name and birthdate or record number to do so. The system will identify matches and ask the person performing the request if this is the person they are looking for.
  • Submit a Request for Confidential Information. Normally, these requests involve members of the bishop's unit, but they can request records for former members as well. These requests are reviewed by the Office of the First Presidency, and he wouldn't learn much until they had reviewed the request and adjudicated that he did, in fact, need the information. 

I would guess your bishop friend used the first approach and was unable to find a match. 

Edited by MarginOfError
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On 11/30/2022 at 2:42 PM, MarginOfError said:

This is inaccurate. The only resource that Bishops have access to that provides church-wide information is the Church Directory of Leaders (CDOL). As the name indicates, it only provides information about leaders, and is intended to facilitate communication between ward and stake leaders. 

I can think of two ways a bishop might attempt to determine if a person still has a membership record.

  • Initialize a request for their record. They would need to know name and birthdate or record number to do so. The system will identify matches and ask the person performing the request if this is the person they are looking for.
  • Submit a Request for Confidential Information. Normally, these requests involve members of the bishop's unit, but they can request records for former members as well. These requests are reviewed by the Office of the First Presidency, and he wouldn't learn much until they had reviewed the request and adjudicated that he did, in fact, need the information. 

I would guess your bishop friend used the first approach and was unable to find a match. 

Thank you for the response, but I’m not sure I understand.  You said Bishops do not have access to a global church database to find members, but then you go on to say that they can initiate a search to find individual members.  

Which is true?

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15 hours ago, Jedi_Nephite said:

Thank you for the response, but I’m not sure I understand.  You said Bishops do not have access to a global church database to find members, but then you go on to say that they can initiate a search to find individual members.  

Which is true?

Both.

Lets clear this up.  Good security practice is to only give access to resources to people that have a legitimate need for that resource.  No matter how much you might trust them, only give them what they need to do their job.

The church has a resource in the form of a membership database.  Bishops (and frankly most members) have no legitimate need to randomly access this database on a whim.  So they do not have access to do this.

However Bishop's do have a legitimate need to "Request Records" to fulfill their calling.  People move, people come to the Bishop saying 'I'm here now, can you help me'  Without being able to get their records this becomes an issue.  So the church has provided a way for the people in a Ward with the proper calling to asks for a record, usually this is a fast and simple process.  But ask any Clerk that has struggled to pull a record in because they get some bad info to base the request on, and you will know they can't just browse the database looking.

That is good security practice, but from the moment the first security is put in place people have been trying to get around it.  The bishop in this example potentially tried to get around the system, by possibly abusing privilege he did have, to get information he should not have.  He most likely tried to request the record of someone he should not.  The system could give him two responses.  It could give him the record, if there was a record he was authorized to see, a record by definition would tell him something.  Or the system could give him nothing.   Nothing is just that... Nothing.  Sadly lots of people jump to conclusions and infer lot of "facts" based on nothing.  Someone being excommunicated is a "possible" reason someones records can't be found, but again I refer you to any ward clerk that struggled to pull in someones record, that is it not the only reason they may fail to find any record.  And its not like the Bishop who might be overstepping can reach out to the target to correct some bad information.

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Thank you for clearing that up, @estradling75

What I had intended to emphasize, and did poorly, was that bishops cannot just look up the full membership information of any member in the church. The best they can do is infer a record does or doesn't exist based on whether the system finds a match (any number of typos may fail to produce a match). 

It should be noted that using the "Request Records" functionality to investigate if a friend/relative/acquaintance has a membership record isn't an approved use of the system. In fact, in some jurisdictions, it could be a violation of privacy laws (it isn't in the U.S., but I imagine it could be a problem in the E.U.)

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On 12/5/2022 at 6:47 AM, MarginOfError said:

Thank you for clearing that up, @estradling75

What I had intended to emphasize, and did poorly, was that bishops cannot just look up the full membership information of any member in the church. The best they can do is infer a record does or doesn't exist based on whether the system finds a match (any number of typos may fail to produce a match). 

It should be noted that using the "Request Records" functionality to investigate if a friend/relative/acquaintance has a membership record isn't an approved use of the system. In fact, in some jurisdictions, it could be a violation of privacy laws (it isn't in the U.S., but I imagine it could be a problem in the E.U.)

Thank you.  I appreciate everyone’s responses.

It turns out that what my brother-in-law did was try to start a records request,  without completing the process, to see if anything would come up.

Not sure if using the “Request Records” functionality to search the record of a family member in a situation like this is approved or not.  He’s a bishop, and pretty by-the-book, so I’m assuming he knows the rules.  He’s also a judge, and I don’t just mean in Israel, and spent many years prosecuting criminals before that, so I think he’s familiar with the law. In any event, it wasn’t our idea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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22 hours ago, Jedi_Nephite said:

Thank you.  I appreciate everyone’s responses.

It turns out that what my brother-in-law did was try to start a records request,  without completing the process, to see if anything would come up.

Not sure if using the “Request Records” functionality to search the record of a family member in a situation like this is approved or not.  He’s a bishop, and pretty by-the-book, so I’m assuming he knows the rules.  He’s also a judge, and I don’t just mean in Israel, and spent many years prosecuting criminals before that, so I think he’s familiar with the law. In any event, it wasn’t our idea.

I'll alert the Brigade for Intervention and Stopping HOrrible Problems (B.I.S.Ho.P) Squad. But you may never hear from him again.

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