How do you work around the church's privacy policy?

[ebande...@gmail.com]

I have to say, I love what you're doing here. I'm developing a similar mobile app based off of the web services here (https://tech.lds.org/wiki/LDS_Tools_Web_Services). Just today however I ran across this post here (https://tech.lds.org/wiki/Third-party_API_for_gospel_content). One paragraph reads:

"Membership data is always private and never integrated through APIs. Additionally, third-party developers are restricted from using LDS Account, which could give access to membership data. This restriction protects the privacy of membership data (a legal requirement in many countries) and safeguards how membership data is viewed and used."

Have you had any conversation with church leaders about the current policy of restricting LDS Account use by third-party developers? I already have my app 90% done and it would break my heart if I had to throw everything away.

Anyway, I'd love to hear how you address or plan to address this issue.

[AJ ONeal (Home)]

That's an issue of politics vs productivity that you have to figure out for yourself.

I have had some conversation with local church leaders and managers at the Riverton office building and everyone likes the idea but there's not yet a clear path on how to make a real API part of the official roadmap.

The gist of what I've gotten is this: The web is cool. The official doctrines of the Gospel (the Church with capital C) obviously don't prescribe how the web and the church (with lowercase c) run together. There's a lot of bureaucracy in some of the (lowercase c) church departments and the young guys that are moving up into management are interested in moving LDS tech forward, but a bunch of old guys in the upper tiers still have to retire before the next wave of awesome can be allowed to happen.

I've got the name and number of one of the key people in the tech department that I plan to schedule a meeting with in the near future, but I'm waiting to get another chunk of LDS Connect done before I do. I think I'm about 3 weeks away from v2.

In any case, no one is going to come after you an its very unlikely that anyone would even ask you to shut your service down. I've had a few phone calls from church IT people inquiring about the site and service, but none of them have asked me to take it down.

AJ ONeal

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "LDS Connect" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to lds-connect...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Erik Andersen]

Thanks for the response. I pushed forward with my own implementation and am presenting it to the Ward Council this Sunday. Keep us all updated as you progress with things!

[John Shaw]

Have you had further discussion around LDS Account API usage?  I'm in the middle of something in my stake that could easily have some things cleared up if these conversations have moved forward.

[AJ ONeal (Home)]

LDS I/O keeps you out of violation of the privacy policy because you don't have to touch usernames and passwords or take church data in on your server.

However, as for my server, it isn't complaint because the church doesn't provide a way to do that... which is exactly why lds.io exists.

It's kinda a chicken and egg thing: have to prove its usefulness to get it to the right ears and get the final green seal, it has to exist and have people using it to prove its usefulness.

AJ ONeal

--
LDS I/O on Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/LDS-IO/
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "LDS I/O" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to lds-io+un...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to lds...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lds-io.