CHURCH DIRECTORY: CONSENT, OPT-OUT, AND EXCLUSION FORM ====================================================== Church ........................................................... Form version ................... Review date ..................... Fill in the church name and the two dates before you hand this out. A consent with no review date on it is a consent that never expires, and a consent that never expires is not a consent. Adapted from a standard that already exists in federal law. Grantees serving victims of violence may release personally identifying information only with "informed, written, reasonably time-limited consent" (34 U.S.C. 12291(b)(2)). Public schools may publish directory information only after telling every family what will be published, that they may refuse, and how long they have to say so (34 C.F.R. 99.37). A church directory is a smaller thing than either, and it is held to no law at all, which is exactly why the standard has to come from the elders instead. This form is not legal advice. Have counsel in your state read it before you adopt it. PART 1. WHO THIS COVERS ----------------------- Household name ................................................... Adults in the household, one line each. Every adult signs for themselves. 1. ............................................................. 2. ............................................................. 3. ............................................................. Children under 18 in the household, first names only. ................................................................ ................................................................ PART 2. WHAT MAY BE PUBLISHED, FIELD BY FIELD --------------------------------------------- Mark each line. An unmarked line is a NO. Do not treat a blank as a yes, and do not carry a mark forward from an older form. Where this can appear: A = the member app or the member area of the church website B = a printed directory or a PDF sent by email C = a class roster or group list shared inside that group only A B C First and last name [ ] [ ] [ ] Household photograph [ ] [ ] [ ] Street address [ ] [ ] [ ] Mobile phone number [ ] [ ] [ ] Home or landline number [ ] [ ] [ ] Email address [ ] [ ] [ ] Birthday, month and day only [ ] [ ] [ ] Wedding anniversary, month and day [ ] [ ] [ ] First names of children under 18 [ ] [ ] [ ] Photographs that include our children [ ] [ ] [ ] Anything not on this list is not published. If a field appears on this list and you cannot say which system holds it and who can see it, take the field off the list rather than guessing. Never published to anyone outside the office, whatever is marked above: giving amounts, pledge amounts, benevolence received, birth year, full date of birth, employer, marital history, health information, background check reports, counseling notes, and the fact that a household has asked to be excluded. PART 3. THE PARTS OF THIS WE CANNOT TAKE BACK --------------------------------------------- Read this before you sign Part 2 column B. The member app and the member area of the website can be corrected the same day. A printed directory cannot. A PDF sent by email cannot. A spreadsheet a volunteer downloaded cannot. Once a copy leaves this building we can stop making new ones and we cannot recall the ones already in homes. So the church makes one commitment in writing, here: We will not print a street address, a full date of birth, a child's age, or a child's school in any directory that leaves this building. We reprint or reissue no more than once per ..... months, and every reissue starts from the current consent on file rather than the last printed copy. PART 4. PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHILDREN ------------------------------- A parent or legal guardian signs for a child under 18. A person subject to a protective order involving this household does not sign for a child in it. [ ] Our children may appear in photographs in the directory. [ ] Our children may appear in photographs, first names only, no last name. [ ] Our children may not appear in any photograph the church publishes. Face tagging, automatic name suggestions, and any feature that searches photographs by face are turned off for this directory. If your software cannot turn them off, the church does not use that feature of the software. Parent or guardian signature ...................... Date ............ PART 5. WITHDRAWING CONSENT --------------------------- You may withdraw any mark in Part 2 at any time, in whole or in part, without giving a reason. You do not have to explain, and nobody will ask. Say so to the person named here, in any form, including in person: Name ........................................................... Role ........................................................... How to reach them .............................................. What happens then, on this timetable: Same day removed from the member app and the member area Within 2 days removed from every group list and class roster Within 7 days confirmed back to you in writing that it is done Next reissue removed from the printed or PDF directory We do not publish, announce, or explain a withdrawal to anyone. PART 6. FULL EXCLUSION ---------------------- A household may be left out of the directory entirely. Mark this and nothing about this household appears in any directory, app, roster, group list, printed copy, or PDF. [ ] Leave our household out of the directory entirely. No reason is required and none will be recorded on this form. The office will not confirm to any caller, in any wording, that this household is a member here, attends here, or has ever been in the directory. Staff answer a question about an excluded household with the same words they would use for a household that never existed in the record. If the reason is safety, tell the person named in Part 5 in whatever detail you choose, and read Part 7 before you decide how much to say. PART 7. IF THERE IS A PROTECTIVE ORDER OR A CUSTODY DISPUTE ----------------------------------------------------------- The church needs to know three things and no more than three, and it writes down as little of them as it can: 1. That a court order exists. 2. Whether the person subject to it may be on the property. 3. Who at the church is allowed to answer questions about this household. Federal law forbids a state from publishing anything about a protection order online where publication "would be likely to publicly reveal the identity or location of the party protected under such order" (18 U.S.C. 2265(d)(3)). A church directory is not a state register, and the mailing label it prints defeats the same protection just as effectively. Many states run an address confidentiality program that gives a participant a substitute mailing address to use in place of a residence. If a member is in one of those programs, the substitute address is the only address this church holds, in every system, including the one the office uses for mailing labels. [ ] There is a court order. Church contact for this household is .......................................................... [ ] This household uses a state substitute address. The residence address is not to be recorded anywhere. PART 8. SIGNATURES ------------------ I have read Parts 1 through 7. The marks in Part 2 are mine. I understand which of them can be corrected and which cannot. Signature ..................................... Date ............ Signature ..................................... Date ............ Received by ................................... Date ............ Next review due ............................... ADMINISTRATIVE NOTES, NOT PART OF THE FORM ------------------------------------------ Where this form lives: one locked file, paper or a folder no volunteer account can open. Not in the church management system as an attachment, because attachments follow the record into every export. When it is re-run: at the review date in the header, on every membership transfer in, and before any printed or PDF directory is produced. A household that does not return the form keeps its previous marks for the app and is left out of the next printed copy, because the previous printed consent has expired and silence is not a renewal. What to do with the old copies: shred them. Keep only the current form and one dated line in the record saying the current form is on file. Church Posting, https://churchposting.com/resources/software/church-directory-software/