Vatican defies critics over new âsimplifiedâ privacy policy
The Roman Catholic Church has been defending its new privacy policy, following concerns that the latest changes may allow the Church to sell confessional data onto third party organisations. The policy changes, implemented on Wednesday, allow the church to âcollate information about users from a number of disparate platforms, with the aim of providing a more unified customer experience.â It will mean that priests can utilise information from confessional for âbetter targeted sermons.â Critics, however, believe that the church plans to sell the data onto organisations such as private detective agencies and Harley Street surgeries. They have also pointed out that advance warning of the changes occured halfway through a particularly gruelling 8000 page Encyclical âProvidentissimus Proboscis Deus De Factoâ, which roughly translates as âNosey God of all Providence says âWassup? Chill!â. This is not the first time the Holy Roman Church has faced opprobrium for such behaviour. The Archbishop of Warsaw was recently forced to resign, following revelations that he had used material from confessionals to author the best selling âImproper Suggestionsâ series of erotic fiction. Stanislaw Wasilevski, now defrocked, is still being pursued in the courts by angry parishioners over unpaid royalties. A spokesman for the Vatican said that the changes âgreatly simplifiedâ the previously labyrinthine privacy policies, adding that churchgoers could âcontrol and manageâ their histories, either by opting out of confession or by lying to the priest.