Why Does The Application Ask About Criminal Records?

About ten years ago the application did not ask about criminal records. Fury, wrath, condemnation, and yes even criticism, flooded the forum and chat. It was all because we did not ask if a prospective member had a criminal history.

We had someone who'd been a member for about a year. There were not any complaints about their behaviour here. There was not a hint of anything amiss. They used their real name as their user name.

One day someone discovered the person was a registered sex offender. At the time there was a consensus that we should at least ask if someone had a criminal record if we were going to allow members who are under eighteen.

That's how the question came to be there.

Thank you for the explanation and reasoning as to why it was added, John.

I can agree to the sentiment but maybe the question should be "are you a registered sex offender?" or something along those lines?

The application used to be quite a bit more defined in that question than what it asks now. Something along the lines of anything with a fine above $300 on non-traffic related offenses or something with jail time, I think.

In fact all of the questions on the third page used to be more defined than what they are now. The work and education questions were more defined to what can you do to assist the temple...

Not sure why the wording change.

This is an international organisation, so attitudes will be very different to the criminality question. Travelling on a train without a ticket may be criminal in one country and not elsewhere - and that information would be irellevant for temple membership. But once my data is in a US database it's subject to US law, not German law - it's got nothing to do with trusting TotJO; for me, it's more about the maintainance of a private life - which is even considered a Human Right in some countries.

The temple have said why they think the information is relevant in this thread; but they should be MUCH more specific in the form if they wish to demonstrate to their membership that TotJO is worthy of trust and understand the multinational, multicultural nature of their organisation - that they will protect our data by not recording it at all if it's not necessary.

Twigga wrote: This is an international organisation, so attitudes will be very different to the criminality question. Travelling on a train without a ticket may be criminal in one country and not elsewhere - and that information would be irellevant for temple membership

True, but if you get caught doing that, you often get a fine or a slap on the wrist, you don't usually get a criminal record

You can always ask for it to be deleted, especially if you're from the EU.

The server that runs this site and has its databases is in France. EU privacy law applies. Anyone can register and participate without giving their name. Not giving an answer to a question on our application is not a lie.

That's very good to know! Thanks for the information on that Br. John!

Do you still have to register twice? Back when I joined there was a difference between joining the forum and joining the Order. The server and its records while located in one place could be seen as a service to the physical place of business (church) which I would have imagined could have exerted its own (legal, local) requirements in regards to using the services provided by the website, in management of membership etc.