Bible Society

biblesociety.org.uk · faith & religion

Using a prayer or scripture app tells the company your faith, and one policy says outright that it collects your religion by inference. The location it needs for prayer times or a nearby place of worship also feeds ads and analytics. Your giving and your activity go back to your congregation.

Reported incidents

Fined £100,000 after hackers reached 417,000 supporters' records

2018-06-08

Affected Supporter database on the charity's internal network

The Information Commissioner's Office fined the British and Foreign Bible Society £100,000 on 8 June 2018 after intruders exploited a weakness in its network between November and December 2016 and reached the personal data of 417,000 supporters. For some of them, payment card and bank account details were put at risk. The ICO said a service account set up in 2009 gave inappropriate remote access and was secured only with an easy-to-guess password. It said the supporters' religious belief could likely be inferred from the data. The charity said it would pay the penalty, £80,000 after a 20 per cent discount, from sales and investments rather than donations.

People affected typically ask Bible Society to confirm whether their information was included, and which categories.

The verified route

DÆTRAX is a personal data accountability ledger: a dated record of which companies hold your personal data, what you asked them to do about it, and what they claimed in reply.