I act as web master for the association in our village. Each year we have a membership form on line for everyone to join the association and pay a small fee to cover costs of events. No big deal and around 500 members.
To keep members informed of events in the village we ask them for permission to send messages on WhatsApp. They choose to opt in or not. If after joining the decide to stop they email me and I remove them or they use WhatsApp to unsubscribe. Easy stuff.
Each year I get comments around we did not know that event was going on, its on the web site, its listed in reception, its on the weekly planing board by the beach and in the shopping centre and … still they claim not to know. Next it will be did not get WhatsApp notice !
The messages on WhatsApp do not allow replies its a send only account.
My question is around data protection and the law perhaps is different in each country.
If members join this year, can i send them things next year even if they are not members or do i have to ask each year
The list of members is not on line only 3 members of the committee have access to the list to add and know who is who by phone number and name address. Its held locally not on the site.
In WhatsApp everyone can see the list of numbers receiving the message as everybody can but number only
Is this a item to consider or am I just paranoid…
We have several members who love to cause issues for others and want to be on solid ground in replying.
I had suggested that as an option but…
The messages ended up in spam and not opened , yes i did say check spam, mark them as valid etc.
Reply was we are on holiday we dont check our mail
The phones most people carry and it arrives on screen as ping where mail does not always
Every week at the welcome meeting where we offer a drink to new arrivals we say check the site which they have used to join the association but falls on not listening
Our secretary is not the brightest bobbin and it was her idea whatsapp she thinks its the bees knees as she uses it for all her family conversations had to get her to change
But it still reverts back to the question of data protection and lists no matter how sent, erase at end of year or not
Just written a system to allow opt out on our web site but suspect it will never be used, at least i covered my ass !
Its the way whatsapp works when you join a group, but its numbers only no location or details may say a name but not always
Sure i am not unique in the quest for info
Generally I refuse any mandatory registration. No matter if it’s Viber, Whatsapp, or anything.
I think whoever agrees with this Whatsapp thingie should not complain about it afterwards. However, I’d prefer e-mail. Well not just prefer, but I personally could not accept anything other option. Instant message solutions are OK for texting the husband, that don’t forget to buy the milk on the way home…
But those are not really searchable…
I see my wife suffering, when she remembers someone said something on the classmates-parents messenger group, but when it happened exactly, how it was worded exactly, or some other detail, which is the main concern at the moment. She can fight messenger for many minutes to find the information.
I used to do similar searches in my heaps of emails. Guess, it takes seconds…
For some reason, people love to suffer with such technical challanges
So I think you could keep that Whatsapp notification, and have the members agree to all data possible dataleaks. But also offer a choice via email notification.
In the e-amails, probably put an opt-out link, so the member can easily unsubscribe if he/she wants.
You would not believe how many notice boards we have with the images on, reception window, shopping centre by the bread shop, outside the chalet where the events take place, board by the beach, … plus every sunday in season its announced to everybody at the welcome meeting over a free drink
And of course the web site which everyone has to use to join the association
But every season at the end the main negative comment is we did not know !
To put it bluntly, whose fault is it that they don’t know? Is it yours or the people’s?
No matter how much you do and how many alternatives you try to come up with, you’ll always get the same comment in the end.
In my opinion, if you can, create a digital newsletter on the site and send it to everyone by email.
That’s enough - you have the information on the association’s website and all the members receive the newsletter by email and you can be sure that, in the end, you’ll still receive complaints about the same subject.
Personally, I refuse to be part of groups on instant messaging services (WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.).
You have an excellent example of a newsletter: FOSS Weekly.
This is my humble opinion.
I think I understood your topic and my answer was in accordance with the translation I made. I’m sorry if I misunderstood.
I send out about 300 emails each month via gmail to members of a club. The main spam problem I encounter is at email servers where the 300 batch can trigger a spam alert. Some time ago I was getting 40 emails bounced each month all by the same email provider. This was solved when I wrote to customer services of that provider and said that the subject header in the email was always the same and that the emails were always sent from my email address - I wrote and thanked the provider. Since then small numbers of emails are occasionally bounced by another provider. So far as I know few of the emails go into the spam folder at the receiver end since members all seem receive their copies apart from the problems mentioned. The emails are always sent under bcc, blind copy, this is necessary to be GDPR compliant cf using WhatsApp where phone numbers are exposed.
In accordance with our GDPR statement the members’ list is kept on Dropbox and is only accessible by myself and the club treasurer. The usual precautions are taken over access to our PCs. The only paper list ever generated is address labels for a yearly posting. Generally paper lists are not controllable and hence are not GDPR compliant irrespective of permissions given by members.
So the question is really around data protection and whatsapp as that is used to send the messages every day and with around 150 on that distribution list does that break data protection ?
The members list is totally seperate and is only seen by 4 of us with no other access, so you cannot tie a number with a name or any furter details
Not seen anything on whatsapp site regarding confidentiality or how to send in a format of blind copy if it does exist.
This whole topic bothers me. We used to be perfectly happy living in a little village where everyone recognised our face and knew where we lived and worked. Anyone could mail us a letter and ir was not considered a threat to give someone my address or phone number.
Today we want to hide behind a Privacy Policy and interact with everyone anonymously.
Cant we find a way to be ourselves again?
Life changes and times move on not always for the better.
The difficulty for holiday accommodation is the changing of clients almost on a daily basis during the summer months and owners renting property dont always inform the renters, sadly if they all came through one place we could organise better but not the case. Many are greedy and take any booking posible so some are not even naturist which is another issue.
Sometimes the law is an ass!
For me seeing a email address when sent incorrectly and not on blind copy annoys the hell out of me, others could profit from it.
But when blind copies arrive care is needed on replies to sender only and not reply all.
Having available a list of phone numbers via WhatsApp again i think is wrong, but the technology behind perhaps has not taken this into account, the box is set at do not reply, but not at do not copy all other number which i think should be an option.
I saw this morning a addition of a further 100 numbers which with a couple of clicks could have been stollen and shared to spamming.
I dont need to do it as i have access but others could
Just like regular SMS or phone calls, it is possible for other WhatsApp users who have your phone number to contact you, even if they are not in your phone address book.
We take spam reports seriously, and we will investigate reports as appropriate. Please block anyone who is sending you unwanted messages. This will prevent the person from contacting you again and will help us identify the user as someone who is potentially abusing our service.
In addition, if appropriate, you may wish to contact local law enforcement officials regarding the person.
Reporting a message as spam also adds the sender to your blocked list. If you unblock a number and have not saved it to your phone’s address book, you will not be able to recover the phone number. Please note that reporting a group as spam will only remove you from the group. It won’t block group members from contacting you, nor will it remove other members from the group
But it does not answer my request for blind copies where numbers are hidden in a group
