Praying for a church-friendly amendment to new data protection rules
SIR – It is not just prayers for the sick that are affected by the new General Data Protection Regulation (report, May 26): so is pastoral care, a vital part of any vicar’s ministry.
Sensitive data may be recorded and shared with a vicar’s pastoral care team. Our church has been told by the Information Commissioner’s Office that our vicar (in Gdpr-speak, a “data controller”) will need to pay an annual data protection fee. Ironically, if our parochial church council were given control over pastoral care, it would be exempt from this fee as a “not-forprofit body”. Our vicar is a mere “legal person”, and so is required to pay a fee.
We are now praying for some church-friendly post-brexit amendments to these rules. Naomi Provost
Sutton Coldfield
SIR – If the Church of England is so concerned about the possible liturgical implications of GDPR, might it not also be prudent to seek the permission of its own Supreme Governor and other members of her family before continuing with its state prayers for the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales? Richard Sharp
Glanton, Northumberland
SIR – The practice of obtaining the permission of the sick to publish prayer requests is nothing new.
I was a churchwarden for seven years and it was always the practice of our church to seek the permission of those in need before mentioning their names in the intercession prayers. I would be very surprised to learn that other churches have not employed the same practice for many years. Juliet Pattinson
Micheldever, Hampshire
SIR – Michael Brotherton (Letters, May 26) asks whether he and his fellow Catholics will be able to pray for the dead without their permission.
Were he to commit himself to the tedious task of reading the relevant “Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and the Council of 27 April 2016”, he might be reassured by paragraph 27 on page L119/5 of the preamble, which states: “This Regulation does not apply to the personal data of deceased persons.
“Member States may provide for rules regarding the processing of personal data of deceased persons.” Britain appears not to have provided for any such rules. JL Jackson
Castle Douglas, Kirkcudbrightshire
SIR – Regardless of whether or not one needs the sufferer’s permission under GDPR, I have long been baffled by the idea of praying for another person’s state of health.
By definition, God already knows exactly what that state of health is, so do these people think that He operates some sort of Facebook “Like” system whereby if, say, 10 others pray about it He will somehow intervene to change the course of human history? Michael Keene
Winchester, Hampshire