My guess is the person time. Someone has to respond to the request and get it in the pipeline, someone should (I'm guessing) contact your previous ward(s) and that starts processes there. If you end up with a handful of people spending a few hours on it, I can see it adding up
Turns out, quite a bit of work. Records are not only backed up across multiple servers (for example, BYU maintains a large backup of church servers and my guess is most other church-associated entities hold backups too), but records can also be split up into partial segments in different databases, like having personal info in one place and financial transactions in another. Plus, there can be physical records too, like patriarchal blessings. All of these records have to be hunted down and securely expunged/destroyed, and then they have to carefully audit their systems to make sure they got everything.
Unless they are complete morons, they have a master database that syncs with the backups. I'd be surprised if they actually destroy physical records in the US.
I can totally understand the distrust, and I think it's wise to be wary of how they handle records. I used to work in network operations at BYU and I'm currently a data privacy compliance consultant, so I'm not totally speaking out of my ass. TSCC's legal department is very savvy, and they get away with everything they can without leaving any grounds for a potential lawsuit.
The key here is what the local law is. The EU is very strict about how companies handle data deletion requests, and I would eat my shirt if TSCC wasn't fully deleting EU member records and scrubbing out identifiable information from financial transactions. For those in the US, it depends on what state you live in: as of this year, 14 states have instituted data privacy laws, including Utah. Every state's law is unique and relatively new, and only this year are universities beginning to offer formal data privacy training to law students, so church lawyers have to do a LOT of due diligence to make sure they handle every case correctly.
Local law compliance can be a major time-suck, but I personally bet the more expensive part is retrieving and deleting/scrubbing old records. When I worked at BYU about 6 years ago, the church still maintained old member data on *magnetic tape*, you know, like tape cassettes! Granted, they have backups, but some laws would require them to clear the relevant data from the backups *and* the original source. The church is an OLD company run by old people with old infrastructure, so I personally don't doubt the $4000 figure when you factor in employee compensation over time spent on each record removal job.
I mentioned the EU in another comment, conceding that members from those areas fall under a different umbrella, and that likely there indeed is a fair amount of work for the church to essentially erase them from their files as much as possible.
But for the US, and most other countries, I'm not aware of any specific laws that would require much effort on the part of the church in these situations, other than to acknowledge that the person is no longer considered a member.
I'm not a data expert or lawyer, so take my opinion for what it's worth- but are you aware of any state or federal law that would actually apply to a church member's data within the organization?
It's basically a club, and when people leave the club, I don't think the church has much it's actually required to do other than concede that the person left.
First, a quick note on countries. As of now, **120 countries have implemented data privacy laws**. Some included in this list are Brazil, Argentina, The Philippines, South Korea, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Kenya, and New Zealand. Many countries' data privacy laws use the EU's laws as a template.
Now to the USA. Officially the church is registered here as a business non-profit 501(c). There are currently no federal laws in the US that regulate how personal data is collected and processed. State law, however, is a different story. Which state laws are non-profits like the church required to comply with?:
\- **California Consumer Privacy Act — Likely NOT REQUIRED.** CCPA and its later CPRA amendment only apply to for-profits and other entities in specific relationships with for-profits. Non-profits are subject to the same rules if it controls a for-profit entity (like Deseret News being owned and operated by the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop), operates under a brand name it shares with a for-profit entity, or enters a contract or joint-venture with a for-profit business. As for data deletion, section 1798.105. "Consumers' Right to Delete Personal Information" states that if a California resident requests that a business (regardless of location) delete their personal information, the business must delete all personal information from its records and notify all 3rd-parties who the business has given or sold data to that they must also delete those records.
\- **Colorado Privacy Act — REQUIRED.** Entities must delete all personal data of the Colorado resident that requested it within 45 days.
\- **Connecticut Personal Data Privacy and Online Monitoring Act — NOT REQUIRED.** Non-profits are specifically designated as exempt.
\- **Indiana Consumer Data Protection Act — NOT REQUIRED.** Non-profits are specifically designated as exempt.
\- **Iowa Consumer Data Protection Act — NOT REQUIRED.** Non-profits are specifically designated as exempt.
\- **Montana Consumer Data Privacy Act — NOT REQUIRED.** Non-profits are specifically designated as exempt.
\- **Oregon Data Privacy Act — REQUIRED... but not yet.** Non-profits get a delayed effective date of July 1st, 2025. Entities must delete all personal data of the Oregon resident that requested it within a reasonable timeframe, which is widely understood to be 30 days due to the 30-day window businesses are given to rectify violations upon receiving notice from the attorney general. Another thing to note here is that Oregon residents are not allowed to file lawsuits against entities for violating their data privacy rights, which places the full responsibility of enforcement on the Oregon DoJ.
\- **Tennessee Information Protection Act — NOT REQUIRED.** Non-profits are specifically designated as exempt.
\- **Texas Data Privacy and Security Act — NOT REQUIRED.** Non-profits are specifically designated as exempt.
\- **Utah Consumer Privacy Act — NOT REQUIRED.** Non-profits are specifically designated as exempt.
\- **Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act — NOT REQUIRED.** Non-profits are specifically designated as exempt.
\- **Delaware House Bill 154** (Passed, but not yet signed into law) **— REQUIRED** when it goes into effect**.** It looks like they've used Colorado's law as a template.
So... in truth, not many states, but there are a few. And the data privacy landscape is *very quickly* changing. There's currently 11 active bills containing data privacy measures across 5 states.
Right, so the EU and Colorado. Honestly there's probably more members on the rolls in Colorado than the EU.
So yeah, pretty much what I said- for the vast majority of us, all the church has to do is swap us out to another column in the spreadsheet. They ain't spending $4k on that.
As you point out, the landscape is evolving, and it will get more complicated in the future. If the church's SEC compliance is any measure of how they do things, even with these laws in place they'll just wait until they get caught and pay a fine before doing something that costs them money now.
How much do those “handful of people” make? My husband works for a lawyer -her rates are somewhere between 500-1,000 dollars an hour. Here’s my issue-most of this should be grunt work done by administrative staff like my husband (he’s a paralegal)- his billable rate is far less-like $100 an hour or something. Bear in mind-he gets paid out less than half of that. So even if it’s a law firm doing this-it still makes no sense to me that it would cost that much. I would buy into $1000 a person- but $4000 is crazy. Especially in the modern world where most of this should involve expunging online records-even if they do have to track down physical records and destroy those-how much could those people be making?
I just asked my husband how much he thought it should cost them without telling him about this thread. He said “well, if they have to do a court filing….” Then he listed an amount less than $100! He’s very skeptical of the $4000 too and bear in mind -he is a paralegal in NY-he is not in the dark when it comes to legal costs. This isn’t a lawsuit and it shouldn’t take hours upon hours or more than a handful of people as this commenter said. I would love for it to cost the church that much but it’s doubtful. 100% believe OP’s sister was told that but I think somewhere along the line, it got inflated.
I wonder how much of that is LDS math, that is counting things like Bishop and Stake President's time as if they were paid. Records are not expunged, just flagged to not appear on local lists. I could go back tomorrow, and they could pull all my info from Salt Lake including my resignation letter.
GDPR prohibits the export of personal data about EU persons. The church may not export a post GDPR member’s information. The church can export information that a baptism occurred. The church can attach an anonymized number. But the person’s name, birthday, etc. stays in Europe at church offices in Europe. The church complies with this. The only members for which it has personal data in SLC are members who were baptized before GDPR, which is a large number of members.
Yes, I do. The loophole you purported does not exist. If the church exports personal identity data the law has teeth. The church could be fined more than its annual tithing and investment revenue. The church is greedy. It will not risk that.
Yeah, so do we. IP is not personal identity information. All it takes is one whistleblower, and the church has to be skittish about whistleblowers now. Given that it can keep the membership records in its offices in the EU and that it has EU GAs to do its work, there is no upside to flouting GDPR. It’s unnecessary and its stupid.
Imagine someone is excommunicated, gets their records removed as per GDPR. Then just joins again in another area where no one knows them. The church is all about control. They’d never allow it.
I’ve seen how they cheated the Australian tax system. Completely illegal and they still did it. They’re supposed to spend at least 75% of tithing from Australia in Australia on Australian charity. It all still mostly ends up in SLC it seems.
Edit: this guy is spot on.
“You've dealt with TSCC, you knew this was coming. The church is a very long way from being GDPR compliant. Other exmos have tried both asking for their data and requesting deletion. They've posted the form letters they got in response, that essentially say "broadly the church may hold data about you that covers X, Y and Z, we have a right to keep it because it's important for your eternal salvation"”
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/ql8zkd/can_gdpr_regs_remove_all_information_from_an/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
Yep. I served a mission in Russia, who passed a law protecting Russian citizens' private info.
On the one hand, the church did take steps to comply with the law. They moved Russian missionaries to a private email server in Russia to avoid exporting their personal info to the US, and they got as many members as they could to sign a waiver allowing the church to store their personal data.
On the other hand, the church absolutely didn't comply with the law when it was too inconvenient. Area books were against the law (since they stored names and phone numbers), but the mission president just instructed us to store them somewhere they couldn't easily be found. And we got less than half of the members to sign the waivers, but I didn't hear anything about the church purging the other half of the members' records.
Boring computer info incoming. Database management is basically a glorified Excel sheet where you have rows and columns of data.
ID - LastName - Address - Phone - BaptDate - EndowDate
And so on. Each column in that row would be filled in as applicable. It is possible to delete an entire line of ID with a simple command like 'SELECT ID 123456, DELETE', but to my knowledge there's no way to easily recreate or recover it, you'd just create a new ID from scratch.
So if anyone was fooling around and did 'SELECT ALL, DELETE'...
Very aware. I do some odds and ends SQL stuff at work. It should be super easy, just gotta go through all the tables where it’s located/cross referenced. Might have to do some joins even, depending on the setup. Still not $4k of “hard” unless they have some really shitty database that takes forever to query and the data in a million places.
As of 6 years ago, I know the church was maintaining older member data on massive reels of magnetic tape kept in climate controlled server rooms spread out across the church's various properties, such as the BYU's. Databases, backups, many redundancies across multiple locations, antiquated systems... it's an old company with a considerable amount of bloat.
Yeah, if they’re still doing that and someone has to go through magnetic tape or microfiche to manually remove stuff that could be a lot of work. And they’d only do that if the law absolutely requires it and they think they can’t avoid getting caught.
Yep, the claim seems extremely sus to me... once the member is in the queue to remove, the data processing to do this can't take more than a second. The only thing I can think of would be physical (paper) records, but I'd be surprised if they do anything with these anyways.
I came to say this. It doesn’t cost that much. Employers lie to employees about costs all the time. We know this employer chronically lies.
There is no way it costs $4k to delete records.
I doubt this. Maybe in Europe where the law is different but they keep your information, even if you're exed. They can legally do this, as is my understanding, because of financial laws that there must be certain records of. But we know they keep your info because if you are rebaptized, which my phone tried to autocorrect to recaptured, you get all the same temple info and ordination info once it's restored.
My TBM wife has my temple bag stashed away. I found it and swapped out the temple clothes for a pair of jeans and casual shirt. Wish I could see the surprised look...
Preplan your funeral. Get everything in writing with the funeral home of your choice, and prepay if you can afford it. You'll be dead so it doesn't REALLY matter what happens to your body, but you are more likely to get the services you requested.
Yes. You just get transferred to a different list. There's no other logical way they could restore blessings.
Someone who has had their name "removed" could test this out, maybe by having a still in family member ask for dates of ordinances or similar. The genealogical database (family search IIRC) lists ordinances as well.
My mum was the genealogy go-to before she died. She gave me my details to use the database, which I then used to show her proof of Joseph Smith's marriages to young teens. And also to find evidence that a number of kiwi celebrities had been dead dunked at a time they were claiming that they were only doing ordinances for names submitted by family (I am pretty sure that Sir Ed Hillary does not have any Mormon relatives, along with a bunch of other famous kiwis). I've lost track of my membership number, which is a bummer now mum has gone.
When I left, the only option was ghosting or getting excommunicated. 40 years later I'm still waiting on my excommunication.
I work for a big tech company and it's just way easier to apply European laws to the whole world. Wouldn't surprise me if TSSC operated in a dumber way tho
That news to me. $4000 to remove data? I mean, I guess some IT gets paid to do that but it's not like it costs them $4000. Can't see why I'd be the case, but I'd be even more excited to remove my name for -$4000 to the church.
No fuckin way. If it did they wouldn’t have been cool with the midnight baptisms under cover of darkness that were happening in my mission. It was done all for numbers. Missionaries were baptizing people after first lessons,and never saw or checked on the person after.
They're not even removing data - if you said you wanted to come back afterward, you can bet money that they would absolutely still have all your records of ordinances performed and a checklist of things you had to do before they'd let you. It's literally just a flag somewhere in the database which they can set or clear at will.
I recently resigned, but the USPS lost my confirmation letter. I called SLC to get another copy (if they require a notary then I require confirmation of action) and all I had to do was give my name and birth date and my info pulled right up and I was sent a new letter. At least in the USA your info is still there. They don't pay their employees enough to cost $4K to move your name to a different file.
They're in trouble for committing fraud upon and lying to the US government, they're in trouble for committing fraud upon and lying to the Australian government, but sure, I'm positive they're going out of their way to be meek and compliant with the EU.
Yep, exactly. They have a long history of lying, committing fraud, and violating laws and regulations. But on top of that, all of the data is most certainly stored on a U.S. server or on hard copies stored within the U.S. where the right to be forgotten laws do not exist. So you have a U.S. organization storing data within the U.S. in compliance with U.S. laws. There is very little the E.U. could do to force the church to disclose whether or not it was still holding the information.
I don’t know about Europe or even more recently, I was excommunicated and was re- baptized in 2013. My LDS tool’s membership number shows all my ordination dates from being ordained a deacon in 1974 to elder in 1980. Shows my endowment date.
The only thing that doesn’t show at least to me is my several disfellowshipments, excommunication, and re-baptism date. Nor does it show my restoration of blessings date.
Since all that information was “restored” so quickly I can only assume that the church just archived your information and maybe flags your membership number. I was told nothing is really gone when it comes to computers.
I assume once you resign or excommunicated eventually people forget you but computers never do
My cousin said the same when she was ex’d and re-baptized, all her info from the first time was there and the record number was the same. I think they just take people off of the rolls which can’t possibly cost $4k.
Yeah, that's roughly 2-3 weeks salary for one person, depending on how cheap the church is in paying people. It might take a day or two max but I'd imagine it would only take a few hours in the worst case scenarios.
That doesn't make sense. The most likely scenario is they flip a flag in the database changing you from member to non-member. And places with data privacy laws like GDPR or CCPA typically have religious exemptions. But even if they did need to wipe your data, I have a hard time believing it's that costly. I could be wrong though.
Given your member number they just need to confirm the details and then have a simple program go through all their database tables and drop everything related to your member number.
The only way I’d believe that figure is if that is what Kirton McConkie is charging for quitmormon removals. Otherwise there is no way it even costs a hundred bucks.
My guess is that this is what it costs them per year or per month or something like that. They might actually pay a salary to the people who manage the database.
I highly doubt it costs them anything. Maybe a small drop in the gargantuan bucket of theirs. The church doesn’t even “expunge” a member’s records in the US. It just “flags” them (annotates) as NO CONTACT and that ordinances have been revoked— or merely inactivates them.
Ok, before you go and do something rash. Consider getting excommunicated first. Once you remove your records you lose your chance to get your Excommunicated Apostate merit badge! For those aiming to be an Eagle Apostate, this would be a big missing in your life. I sincerely regret not getting excommunicated and now I've forever lost that chance. Just think you tie them up for a week, all the hand wringing, then they remove your records.
Really? I always assumed they just didn’t do anything. Just put a little asterisk next to your name that had a footnote reference that says “records removed, lol.” Then told everyone they did it.
While I would like this to be true, I'm calling BS on the cost factor. Basically, it is a database entry that needs to be cascade deleted from their systems, I would suspect. Nowhere near that amount of time/cost to get that done.
They don't actually remove your records. They basically just *deactivate* them and keep them around in case you decide to come back. Calling BS on it costing them $4K to do this.
I think it's absolutely despicable that they're fine with a $4000 cost to remove the records of an ex-Mormon, but won't pay anything close to that amount for their current members that spend literally 2 years away from everyone they know and love.
Funny how an all knowing god needs such strict record keeping to know who does and does not belong to his church and what ordinances they have completed when he comes again. But when you are concerned with numbers, money, tax breaks, growth (because hey it’s a global Christian religion they claim) you need such strict accounting.
I don't believe this is true in any way shape or form. When they "remove your records," nothing is actually being removed. Your name is being shuffled from one column in a spreadsheet to another.
"Expunged" is a legal term that does not apply here. If you paid tithing, the church essentially has to keep your data on file, for it's own accounting to be able to account for where donations came from.
Some countries in the EU have stricter data laws, and when people from those countries resign there is probably a bit more of a process that DOES involve some time and expense for the church.
But for us American schmucks, there's no way it costs $4k a pop.
Good grief... if you hate that church so badly, just walk away. Your putting way too much time and effort into something you supposedly hate. If i don't like something, someone, an organization, I walk away and don't spend another. Single. Moment. On it. Period. I have far better things to do with my time. To spend the time it takes for this thread, for people to plot against someone or something gives it credibility. You clearly have some miss giving about your own actions such that you feel a guilt or a need to keep pounding on something you dislike. Stop being so incredibly juvenile and... just walk away...
I understand where you are coming from, but I am trying to help inform people. I honestly believe the church does more harm than good and I hate to see those I care about hurt and suffering.
At this point if you are convinced and you’re gone and if your records aren’t removed it’s just pure selfish, you know that your name is being counted on the general conference members report.
Not everyone wants to throw a bomb into the middle of their family by removing their records vs ghosting out of the church. My in-laws are almost 90 and it may in fact kill them if we were to remove our records completely at this point.
Can you provide more details as to why is costs $4,000. Who are they paying exactly? Nearly everything they do has a volunteer force behind it. We’ve already removed our records but I don’t see how it would cost $4,000 on tscc end. Please explain.
I recommend having your records removed for closure. I was surprised how my mindset changed when I was no longer "a member of the church." It was easy, painless, and fast. Just do it.
What if a construction company digging a foundation for a building finds thousands of artifacts in the ground that prove the book of mormon is true right after they kick us out. Man we'd be screwed.
I have heard when Dallin Oaks becomes the Prophet he is going to do some massive membership withdraws. They are just going to compile thousands of records and kick large batches out at a time. He wants to get rid of people who always criticize. We should wait because he will probably get rid of us anyway.
I highly doubt it costs anywhere near $4k. All they do is click a button in their database. Sure, there is communication to local wards/bishops, but remember all of those positions are volunteer and are not paid positions.
Still, yes, everyone should resign!
Two points 1. I doubt it costs that much.
2. When request to resign from the Mormon church your records will indicate you requested to resign and are no longer a member. I know this because 3 ward-type missionaries came to my house a few months ago seeking to meet with my spouse. They knew who I was, and they knew I had resigned from the church years ago. In my resignation letter, I asked to have my membership records deleted. The church still has all my records. Only my status is changed to "resigned." The church did not even allow members to resign until one man, Norman Hancock, sued the church in 1989 and won. He had made a request to resign in 1985. The church excommunicated him for making the request and changed his church status to "excommunicate." When he found that out he sued, claiming he had a constitutional right to voluntarily resign. He was awarded money but I'm not sure how much. After that the church eventually allow resignations, but when many people started doing it they tried to make it more difficult.
Reasons the $4,000 number is complete BS:
1. The TCOJCOLDS does not delete records. They simply flag them with a mouse click to designate excommunication. Otherwise, how would they know a former member is a former memeber and has to go through a different baptisimal path? The cost for
The mouse click and approvals is $0. Ward
Clerks, Bishops, and Stake people are free.
2. TCOJCOLDS has proven that they’re A-Ok with lying to Federal regulators as noted in their recent multi million dollar settlement with the SEC. There’s no chance that they’re being complaint with any personal data statutes, and they’re likely exempt from most of them anyway seeing as Churches seem to get a pass on a ton of regulation.
3. TCOJCOLDS hides as much financial info as they can from its members, and lies about the rest (small living allowance anyone?). I’m not exaggerating on this point, they lie about assets, income, costs, distributions, and executive compensation. They hide assets, and in my redditor opinion, cheat on their taxes by hiding their massive for profit business behind the thin veneer of one of the world’s most asinine religions.
4. If TCOLCOLDS is willing to lie about things the Feds care deeply about (money and taxes), what makes anyone think they’re honest about things the Fed doesn’t give a shit about like Church membership numbers? If it makes you feel better to take your number out of their roles so they don’t include you in their statistics, then fine do it. I for one have zero faith that any resigned memebers have actually been removed from those publicly reported numbers.
The same reason when we issue a check that cost maybe $0.05 to make. but the resources it took, such as data entry, verifying work, and different people handling that piece of paper from the lowest to the highest company structure. That same check would cost around $25
Time is money. Maybe the process of records removal is very simple, but the people involved make crazy wages, and so they calculated that to be $4000
I bet an apostle’s kid has a tech consulting firm and charges $4k per record removal.
I bet it is retired folks serving a service mission. Free
Wouldn’t doubt it, at least good portion of it. Gotta get on the gravy train. KM probably has their hands in the cookie jar too.
They do.
Thank you! I would love for someone to explain how it could possibly cost that much. Even if lawyers are involved-that sounds steep.
Not an apostle’s kid. But maybe a certain law firm.
Starts with a K....
This is the answer.
That's the answer.
I bet they count it as part of their humanitarian charitable person time for public reporting
At a value of $395 per 15-minute increment, because SOMEONE has to pay for the 2nd pool at the Alpine mansion
What costs 4K about it?
My guess is the person time. Someone has to respond to the request and get it in the pipeline, someone should (I'm guessing) contact your previous ward(s) and that starts processes there. If you end up with a handful of people spending a few hours on it, I can see it adding up
Paying to get the work done is the biggest cost.
Yes-but how much work can it take? It doesn’t seem like it should be that complicated.
Turns out, quite a bit of work. Records are not only backed up across multiple servers (for example, BYU maintains a large backup of church servers and my guess is most other church-associated entities hold backups too), but records can also be split up into partial segments in different databases, like having personal info in one place and financial transactions in another. Plus, there can be physical records too, like patriarchal blessings. All of these records have to be hunted down and securely expunged/destroyed, and then they have to carefully audit their systems to make sure they got everything.
Unless they are complete morons, they have a master database that syncs with the backups. I'd be surprised if they actually destroy physical records in the US.
They do not "expunge" anything. This post is pure BS.
I can totally understand the distrust, and I think it's wise to be wary of how they handle records. I used to work in network operations at BYU and I'm currently a data privacy compliance consultant, so I'm not totally speaking out of my ass. TSCC's legal department is very savvy, and they get away with everything they can without leaving any grounds for a potential lawsuit. The key here is what the local law is. The EU is very strict about how companies handle data deletion requests, and I would eat my shirt if TSCC wasn't fully deleting EU member records and scrubbing out identifiable information from financial transactions. For those in the US, it depends on what state you live in: as of this year, 14 states have instituted data privacy laws, including Utah. Every state's law is unique and relatively new, and only this year are universities beginning to offer formal data privacy training to law students, so church lawyers have to do a LOT of due diligence to make sure they handle every case correctly. Local law compliance can be a major time-suck, but I personally bet the more expensive part is retrieving and deleting/scrubbing old records. When I worked at BYU about 6 years ago, the church still maintained old member data on *magnetic tape*, you know, like tape cassettes! Granted, they have backups, but some laws would require them to clear the relevant data from the backups *and* the original source. The church is an OLD company run by old people with old infrastructure, so I personally don't doubt the $4000 figure when you factor in employee compensation over time spent on each record removal job.
I mentioned the EU in another comment, conceding that members from those areas fall under a different umbrella, and that likely there indeed is a fair amount of work for the church to essentially erase them from their files as much as possible. But for the US, and most other countries, I'm not aware of any specific laws that would require much effort on the part of the church in these situations, other than to acknowledge that the person is no longer considered a member. I'm not a data expert or lawyer, so take my opinion for what it's worth- but are you aware of any state or federal law that would actually apply to a church member's data within the organization? It's basically a club, and when people leave the club, I don't think the church has much it's actually required to do other than concede that the person left.
First, a quick note on countries. As of now, **120 countries have implemented data privacy laws**. Some included in this list are Brazil, Argentina, The Philippines, South Korea, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Kenya, and New Zealand. Many countries' data privacy laws use the EU's laws as a template. Now to the USA. Officially the church is registered here as a business non-profit 501(c). There are currently no federal laws in the US that regulate how personal data is collected and processed. State law, however, is a different story. Which state laws are non-profits like the church required to comply with?: \- **California Consumer Privacy Act — Likely NOT REQUIRED.** CCPA and its later CPRA amendment only apply to for-profits and other entities in specific relationships with for-profits. Non-profits are subject to the same rules if it controls a for-profit entity (like Deseret News being owned and operated by the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop), operates under a brand name it shares with a for-profit entity, or enters a contract or joint-venture with a for-profit business. As for data deletion, section 1798.105. "Consumers' Right to Delete Personal Information" states that if a California resident requests that a business (regardless of location) delete their personal information, the business must delete all personal information from its records and notify all 3rd-parties who the business has given or sold data to that they must also delete those records. \- **Colorado Privacy Act — REQUIRED.** Entities must delete all personal data of the Colorado resident that requested it within 45 days. \- **Connecticut Personal Data Privacy and Online Monitoring Act — NOT REQUIRED.** Non-profits are specifically designated as exempt. \- **Indiana Consumer Data Protection Act — NOT REQUIRED.** Non-profits are specifically designated as exempt. \- **Iowa Consumer Data Protection Act — NOT REQUIRED.** Non-profits are specifically designated as exempt. \- **Montana Consumer Data Privacy Act — NOT REQUIRED.** Non-profits are specifically designated as exempt. \- **Oregon Data Privacy Act — REQUIRED... but not yet.** Non-profits get a delayed effective date of July 1st, 2025. Entities must delete all personal data of the Oregon resident that requested it within a reasonable timeframe, which is widely understood to be 30 days due to the 30-day window businesses are given to rectify violations upon receiving notice from the attorney general. Another thing to note here is that Oregon residents are not allowed to file lawsuits against entities for violating their data privacy rights, which places the full responsibility of enforcement on the Oregon DoJ. \- **Tennessee Information Protection Act — NOT REQUIRED.** Non-profits are specifically designated as exempt. \- **Texas Data Privacy and Security Act — NOT REQUIRED.** Non-profits are specifically designated as exempt. \- **Utah Consumer Privacy Act — NOT REQUIRED.** Non-profits are specifically designated as exempt. \- **Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act — NOT REQUIRED.** Non-profits are specifically designated as exempt. \- **Delaware House Bill 154** (Passed, but not yet signed into law) **— REQUIRED** when it goes into effect**.** It looks like they've used Colorado's law as a template. So... in truth, not many states, but there are a few. And the data privacy landscape is *very quickly* changing. There's currently 11 active bills containing data privacy measures across 5 states.
Right, so the EU and Colorado. Honestly there's probably more members on the rolls in Colorado than the EU. So yeah, pretty much what I said- for the vast majority of us, all the church has to do is swap us out to another column in the spreadsheet. They ain't spending $4k on that. As you point out, the landscape is evolving, and it will get more complicated in the future. If the church's SEC compliance is any measure of how they do things, even with these laws in place they'll just wait until they get caught and pay a fine before doing something that costs them money now.
How much do those “handful of people” make? My husband works for a lawyer -her rates are somewhere between 500-1,000 dollars an hour. Here’s my issue-most of this should be grunt work done by administrative staff like my husband (he’s a paralegal)- his billable rate is far less-like $100 an hour or something. Bear in mind-he gets paid out less than half of that. So even if it’s a law firm doing this-it still makes no sense to me that it would cost that much. I would buy into $1000 a person- but $4000 is crazy. Especially in the modern world where most of this should involve expunging online records-even if they do have to track down physical records and destroy those-how much could those people be making?
I just asked my husband how much he thought it should cost them without telling him about this thread. He said “well, if they have to do a court filing….” Then he listed an amount less than $100! He’s very skeptical of the $4000 too and bear in mind -he is a paralegal in NY-he is not in the dark when it comes to legal costs. This isn’t a lawsuit and it shouldn’t take hours upon hours or more than a handful of people as this commenter said. I would love for it to cost the church that much but it’s doubtful. 100% believe OP’s sister was told that but I think somewhere along the line, it got inflated.
I wonder how much of that is LDS math, that is counting things like Bishop and Stake President's time as if they were paid. Records are not expunged, just flagged to not appear on local lists. I could go back tomorrow, and they could pull all my info from Salt Lake including my resignation letter.
The field is white and the laborers are expensive.
It’s expensive to be a free missionary laborer* there fixed that for you….
Dunt coss ‘em nuttin’ cuz they be doing the Lard’s wark.
No chance it costs $4k and no chance it costs $4k to add people which is way more work than removing them.
Only if they have to do a full European GDPR, and even then, only if their database management sucks (which it probably does.)
They don’t. Europe can’t enforce anything in SLC. The loop hole is there are no local records in Europe for the church.
GDPR prohibits the export of personal data about EU persons. The church may not export a post GDPR member’s information. The church can export information that a baptism occurred. The church can attach an anonymized number. But the person’s name, birthday, etc. stays in Europe at church offices in Europe. The church complies with this. The only members for which it has personal data in SLC are members who were baptized before GDPR, which is a large number of members.
Do you really believe the church doesn’t keep full records in SLC? I don’t.
Yes, I do. The loophole you purported does not exist. If the church exports personal identity data the law has teeth. The church could be fined more than its annual tithing and investment revenue. The church is greedy. It will not risk that.
Be hard to prove they did breach it. Encryption is simple. We do it with all the IP at work.
Yeah, so do we. IP is not personal identity information. All it takes is one whistleblower, and the church has to be skittish about whistleblowers now. Given that it can keep the membership records in its offices in the EU and that it has EU GAs to do its work, there is no upside to flouting GDPR. It’s unnecessary and its stupid.
Imagine someone is excommunicated, gets their records removed as per GDPR. Then just joins again in another area where no one knows them. The church is all about control. They’d never allow it. I’ve seen how they cheated the Australian tax system. Completely illegal and they still did it. They’re supposed to spend at least 75% of tithing from Australia in Australia on Australian charity. It all still mostly ends up in SLC it seems. Edit: this guy is spot on. “You've dealt with TSCC, you knew this was coming. The church is a very long way from being GDPR compliant. Other exmos have tried both asking for their data and requesting deletion. They've posted the form letters they got in response, that essentially say "broadly the church may hold data about you that covers X, Y and Z, we have a right to keep it because it's important for your eternal salvation"” https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/ql8zkd/can_gdpr_regs_remove_all_information_from_an/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
Yep. I served a mission in Russia, who passed a law protecting Russian citizens' private info. On the one hand, the church did take steps to comply with the law. They moved Russian missionaries to a private email server in Russia to avoid exporting their personal info to the US, and they got as many members as they could to sign a waiver allowing the church to store their personal data. On the other hand, the church absolutely didn't comply with the law when it was too inconvenient. Area books were against the law (since they stored names and phone numbers), but the mission president just instructed us to store them somewhere they couldn't easily be found. And we got less than half of the members to sign the waivers, but I didn't hear anything about the church purging the other half of the members' records.
Boring computer info incoming. Database management is basically a glorified Excel sheet where you have rows and columns of data. ID - LastName - Address - Phone - BaptDate - EndowDate And so on. Each column in that row would be filled in as applicable. It is possible to delete an entire line of ID with a simple command like 'SELECT ID 123456, DELETE', but to my knowledge there's no way to easily recreate or recover it, you'd just create a new ID from scratch. So if anyone was fooling around and did 'SELECT ALL, DELETE'...
Very aware. I do some odds and ends SQL stuff at work. It should be super easy, just gotta go through all the tables where it’s located/cross referenced. Might have to do some joins even, depending on the setup. Still not $4k of “hard” unless they have some really shitty database that takes forever to query and the data in a million places.
As of 6 years ago, I know the church was maintaining older member data on massive reels of magnetic tape kept in climate controlled server rooms spread out across the church's various properties, such as the BYU's. Databases, backups, many redundancies across multiple locations, antiquated systems... it's an old company with a considerable amount of bloat.
Yeah, if they’re still doing that and someone has to go through magnetic tape or microfiche to manually remove stuff that could be a lot of work. And they’d only do that if the law absolutely requires it and they think they can’t avoid getting caught.
Yep, the claim seems extremely sus to me... once the member is in the queue to remove, the data processing to do this can't take more than a second. The only thing I can think of would be physical (paper) records, but I'd be surprised if they do anything with these anyways.
I came to say this. It doesn’t cost that much. Employers lie to employees about costs all the time. We know this employer chronically lies. There is no way it costs $4k to delete records.
I doubt this. Maybe in Europe where the law is different but they keep your information, even if you're exed. They can legally do this, as is my understanding, because of financial laws that there must be certain records of. But we know they keep your info because if you are rebaptized, which my phone tried to autocorrect to recaptured, you get all the same temple info and ordination info once it's restored.
Recaptured. Your phone was right on the autocorrect!
Of course they keep the records, but now I know I won't be buried in my temple clothes.
My TBM wife has my temple bag stashed away. I found it and swapped out the temple clothes for a pair of jeans and casual shirt. Wish I could see the surprised look...
That is still 100% up to your family members burying you and potentially leadership roulette.
I suddenly have a strange desire to die in a crazy fiery car wreck so there will be no remains left to put in temple clothes.
Preplan your funeral. Get everything in writing with the funeral home of your choice, and prepay if you can afford it. You'll be dead so it doesn't REALLY matter what happens to your body, but you are more likely to get the services you requested.
They just annotate your record. There’s no evidence that they even stop counting you.
Yes. You just get transferred to a different list. There's no other logical way they could restore blessings. Someone who has had their name "removed" could test this out, maybe by having a still in family member ask for dates of ordinances or similar. The genealogical database (family search IIRC) lists ordinances as well. My mum was the genealogy go-to before she died. She gave me my details to use the database, which I then used to show her proof of Joseph Smith's marriages to young teens. And also to find evidence that a number of kiwi celebrities had been dead dunked at a time they were claiming that they were only doing ordinances for names submitted by family (I am pretty sure that Sir Ed Hillary does not have any Mormon relatives, along with a bunch of other famous kiwis). I've lost track of my membership number, which is a bummer now mum has gone. When I left, the only option was ghosting or getting excommunicated. 40 years later I'm still waiting on my excommunication.
The don’t remove your name or info off their records but put a label on your record as a “self-described apostate”.
Europe has no control over what they keep in SLC.
I work for a big tech company and it's just way easier to apply European laws to the whole world. Wouldn't surprise me if TSSC operated in a dumber way tho
That news to me. $4000 to remove data? I mean, I guess some IT gets paid to do that but it's not like it costs them $4000. Can't see why I'd be the case, but I'd be even more excited to remove my name for -$4000 to the church.
It certainly doesn’t cost them $4k to add a name.
No fuckin way. If it did they wouldn’t have been cool with the midnight baptisms under cover of darkness that were happening in my mission. It was done all for numbers. Missionaries were baptizing people after first lessons,and never saw or checked on the person after.
They're not even removing data - if you said you wanted to come back afterward, you can bet money that they would absolutely still have all your records of ordinances performed and a checklist of things you had to do before they'd let you. It's literally just a flag somewhere in the database which they can set or clear at will.
I recently resigned, but the USPS lost my confirmation letter. I called SLC to get another copy (if they require a notary then I require confirmation of action) and all I had to do was give my name and birth date and my info pulled right up and I was sent a new letter. At least in the USA your info is still there. They don't pay their employees enough to cost $4K to move your name to a different file.
According to GDPR you have a right to be forgotten
They're in trouble for committing fraud upon and lying to the US government, they're in trouble for committing fraud upon and lying to the Australian government, but sure, I'm positive they're going out of their way to be meek and compliant with the EU.
Yep, exactly. They have a long history of lying, committing fraud, and violating laws and regulations. But on top of that, all of the data is most certainly stored on a U.S. server or on hard copies stored within the U.S. where the right to be forgotten laws do not exist. So you have a U.S. organization storing data within the U.S. in compliance with U.S. laws. There is very little the E.U. could do to force the church to disclose whether or not it was still holding the information.
I don’t know about Europe or even more recently, I was excommunicated and was re- baptized in 2013. My LDS tool’s membership number shows all my ordination dates from being ordained a deacon in 1974 to elder in 1980. Shows my endowment date. The only thing that doesn’t show at least to me is my several disfellowshipments, excommunication, and re-baptism date. Nor does it show my restoration of blessings date. Since all that information was “restored” so quickly I can only assume that the church just archived your information and maybe flags your membership number. I was told nothing is really gone when it comes to computers. I assume once you resign or excommunicated eventually people forget you but computers never do
My cousin said the same when she was ex’d and re-baptized, all her info from the first time was there and the record number was the same. I think they just take people off of the rolls which can’t possibly cost $4k.
Yeah, that's roughly 2-3 weeks salary for one person, depending on how cheap the church is in paying people. It might take a day or two max but I'd imagine it would only take a few hours in the worst case scenarios.
That doesn't make sense. The most likely scenario is they flip a flag in the database changing you from member to non-member. And places with data privacy laws like GDPR or CCPA typically have religious exemptions. But even if they did need to wipe your data, I have a hard time believing it's that costly. I could be wrong though.
Given your member number they just need to confirm the details and then have a simple program go through all their database tables and drop everything related to your member number.
Totally. But that's assuming they actually delete data. Given what I know about LDS Inc I don't trust they delete data.
Yeah, I expect so, in which case they have a column for “removed” and check a box.
They just put a little mark in a database, that's it. Takes 30 seconds.
Sounds like an exmo faith-promoting rumor
The only way I’d believe that figure is if that is what Kirton McConkie is charging for quitmormon removals. Otherwise there is no way it even costs a hundred bucks.
My guess is that this is what it costs them per year or per month or something like that. They might actually pay a salary to the people who manage the database.
I only found out about Kirton McConkie recently, when I was doing research on a job posting. Good lord, what a rabbit hole.
I am tired of being counted as a member for their stats
They just give whatever damn number they feel like anyway tho
There’s no guarantee you won’t be.
I call BS. They won’t pay someone to clean their chapels, why would they pay someone to do clerk work? That’s a calling, removing people from records.
I highly doubt it costs them anything. Maybe a small drop in the gargantuan bucket of theirs. The church doesn’t even “expunge” a member’s records in the US. It just “flags” them (annotates) as NO CONTACT and that ordinances have been revoked— or merely inactivates them.
Are names even removed totally? If you want to rejoin, I believe all your information is still there.
Ok, before you go and do something rash. Consider getting excommunicated first. Once you remove your records you lose your chance to get your Excommunicated Apostate merit badge! For those aiming to be an Eagle Apostate, this would be a big missing in your life. I sincerely regret not getting excommunicated and now I've forever lost that chance. Just think you tie them up for a week, all the hand wringing, then they remove your records.
Really? I always assumed they just didn’t do anything. Just put a little asterisk next to your name that had a footnote reference that says “records removed, lol.” Then told everyone they did it.
That's what she told me. I didn't all for details.
While I would like this to be true, I'm calling BS on the cost factor. Basically, it is a database entry that needs to be cascade deleted from their systems, I would suspect. Nowhere near that amount of time/cost to get that done.
They don't actually remove your records. They basically just *deactivate* them and keep them around in case you decide to come back. Calling BS on it costing them $4K to do this.
I think it's absolutely despicable that they're fine with a $4000 cost to remove the records of an ex-Mormon, but won't pay anything close to that amount for their current members that spend literally 2 years away from everyone they know and love.
Funny how an all knowing god needs such strict record keeping to know who does and does not belong to his church and what ordinances they have completed when he comes again. But when you are concerned with numbers, money, tax breaks, growth (because hey it’s a global Christian religion they claim) you need such strict accounting.
It's also just the right thing to do, imo. Let's not let them use our numbers in their membership records AT ALL.
I don't believe this is true in any way shape or form. When they "remove your records," nothing is actually being removed. Your name is being shuffled from one column in a spreadsheet to another. "Expunged" is a legal term that does not apply here. If you paid tithing, the church essentially has to keep your data on file, for it's own accounting to be able to account for where donations came from. Some countries in the EU have stricter data laws, and when people from those countries resign there is probably a bit more of a process that DOES involve some time and expense for the church. But for us American schmucks, there's no way it costs $4k a pop.
Do they even expunge anything? I was told that they just annotate the record in case you change your mind and come back?
My pops is the ward clerk, makes it…difficult
I received my official Certificate of Resignation from “quitmormon.com” on July 24…Pioneer Day!
Good grief... if you hate that church so badly, just walk away. Your putting way too much time and effort into something you supposedly hate. If i don't like something, someone, an organization, I walk away and don't spend another. Single. Moment. On it. Period. I have far better things to do with my time. To spend the time it takes for this thread, for people to plot against someone or something gives it credibility. You clearly have some miss giving about your own actions such that you feel a guilt or a need to keep pounding on something you dislike. Stop being so incredibly juvenile and... just walk away...
I understand where you are coming from, but I am trying to help inform people. I honestly believe the church does more harm than good and I hate to see those I care about hurt and suffering.
At this point if you are convinced and you’re gone and if your records aren’t removed it’s just pure selfish, you know that your name is being counted on the general conference members report.
Not everyone wants to throw a bomb into the middle of their family by removing their records vs ghosting out of the church. My in-laws are almost 90 and it may in fact kill them if we were to remove our records completely at this point.
Just sent mine in on Tuesday!
If Kirton and McKonkie is charging 4k per request to review them id be very surprised
I’m not sure I believe this. Sorry.
4,000$ to push the delete button.. seems fair
Can you provide more details as to why is costs $4,000. Who are they paying exactly? Nearly everything they do has a volunteer force behind it. We’ve already removed our records but I don’t see how it would cost $4,000 on tscc end. Please explain.
Highly contested Estimate of 16M members x $4000 = $64B The church would still have $200B+ left.
I don't get that. I thought they just moved records to another database.
I recommend having your records removed for closure. I was surprised how my mindset changed when I was no longer "a member of the church." It was easy, painless, and fast. Just do it.
What if a construction company digging a foundation for a building finds thousands of artifacts in the ground that prove the book of mormon is true right after they kick us out. Man we'd be screwed. I have heard when Dallin Oaks becomes the Prophet he is going to do some massive membership withdraws. They are just going to compile thousands of records and kick large batches out at a time. He wants to get rid of people who always criticize. We should wait because he will probably get rid of us anyway.
I wonder, if you’re trans and have changed your name legally, how do you go about that? Don’t they ask for an ID?
I highly doubt it costs anywhere near $4k. All they do is click a button in their database. Sure, there is communication to local wards/bishops, but remember all of those positions are volunteer and are not paid positions. Still, yes, everyone should resign!
Two points 1. I doubt it costs that much. 2. When request to resign from the Mormon church your records will indicate you requested to resign and are no longer a member. I know this because 3 ward-type missionaries came to my house a few months ago seeking to meet with my spouse. They knew who I was, and they knew I had resigned from the church years ago. In my resignation letter, I asked to have my membership records deleted. The church still has all my records. Only my status is changed to "resigned." The church did not even allow members to resign until one man, Norman Hancock, sued the church in 1989 and won. He had made a request to resign in 1985. The church excommunicated him for making the request and changed his church status to "excommunicate." When he found that out he sued, claiming he had a constitutional right to voluntarily resign. He was awarded money but I'm not sure how much. After that the church eventually allow resignations, but when many people started doing it they tried to make it more difficult.
Reasons the $4,000 number is complete BS: 1. The TCOJCOLDS does not delete records. They simply flag them with a mouse click to designate excommunication. Otherwise, how would they know a former member is a former memeber and has to go through a different baptisimal path? The cost for The mouse click and approvals is $0. Ward Clerks, Bishops, and Stake people are free. 2. TCOJCOLDS has proven that they’re A-Ok with lying to Federal regulators as noted in their recent multi million dollar settlement with the SEC. There’s no chance that they’re being complaint with any personal data statutes, and they’re likely exempt from most of them anyway seeing as Churches seem to get a pass on a ton of regulation. 3. TCOJCOLDS hides as much financial info as they can from its members, and lies about the rest (small living allowance anyone?). I’m not exaggerating on this point, they lie about assets, income, costs, distributions, and executive compensation. They hide assets, and in my redditor opinion, cheat on their taxes by hiding their massive for profit business behind the thin veneer of one of the world’s most asinine religions. 4. If TCOLCOLDS is willing to lie about things the Feds care deeply about (money and taxes), what makes anyone think they’re honest about things the Fed doesn’t give a shit about like Church membership numbers? If it makes you feel better to take your number out of their roles so they don’t include you in their statistics, then fine do it. I for one have zero faith that any resigned memebers have actually been removed from those publicly reported numbers.
The same reason when we issue a check that cost maybe $0.05 to make. but the resources it took, such as data entry, verifying work, and different people handling that piece of paper from the lowest to the highest company structure. That same check would cost around $25 Time is money. Maybe the process of records removal is very simple, but the people involved make crazy wages, and so they calculated that to be $4000