Upon becoming a publisher, a person acknowledges that the worldwide religious organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses (“Jehovah’s Witnesses”)—including the local congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, local branch office, and similar cooperating organizations of Jehovah’s Witnesses—lawfully uses his or her personal data in accordance with its legitimate religious interests. Publishers willingly provide personal data to their congregation as outlined in the book Organized to Do Jehovah’s Will so that they may participate in religious activities in connection with their worship and so that they may receive spiritual support.—1 Peter 5:2.

Personal data includes a person’s name, date of birth, gender, date of baptism, and contact information as well as information related to his spiritual well-being, field ministry activity, any roles held among Jehovah’s Witnesses, or any data publishers provide as they engage in additional religious activities. The data includes information that would reveal the publisher’s religious beliefs and may also include other sensitive personal data. Use of personal data may mean collecting, recording, organizing, and storing that data, as well as similar operations performed on that data.

The Data Protection Law in this country is the following:

Personal Data Protection Law (Law n. 22/11 of June 17); and African Union Convention on Cybersecurity and Protection of Personal Data (Resolution n. 33/19 of 9 July; Letter of Ratification n. 1/20 of 3 March).

Under this Data Protection Law, Jehovah’s Witnesses use the personal data of publishers for religious purposes, including for the following:

• maintaining and administering the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses

• participation in any meeting of a local congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses and in any volunteer activity or project

• voluntary participation in a meeting, an assembly, or a convention that is recorded and broadcast for the spiritual instruction of Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide

• assigning or fulfilling any other role in a congregation

• maintaining the Congregation’s Publisher Record cards

• shepherding and care by elders of Jehovah’s Witnesses (Acts 20:28; James 5:14, 15)

• recording emergency contact information to be used in the event of an emergency

Personal data will be kept only for as long as the purposes stated above or other legitimate purposes apply. If a publisher chooses not to provide any necessary personal information or objects to the processing of his/her personal information, Jehovah’s Witnesses may not be able to evaluate the publisher’s suitability to fulfill certain roles within the congregation or to participate in certain religious activities.

Jehovah’s Witnesses operate globally. Therefore, publishers’ personal data may be transferred to, may be transited through, or may be stored outside the country in which they are located. This may include countries whose laws provide different levels of data protection, which are not always equivalent to the level of data protection in the country from which the data may be sent. Jehovah’s Witnesses take appropriate measures to guarantee adequate protection for any information so transferred. This may include using agreements such as standard contractual clauses for such transfers. All recipients who are Jehovah’s Witnesses use publishers’ personal data only in accordance with the Global Data Protection Policy of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Publishers have the right to access, to request deletion or restriction of the processing of, to object to the processing of, and to correct any inaccuracies regarding their personal data held by Jehovah’s Witnesses. If publishers give consent to process their personal data for other activities, they may at any time revoke their consent with regard to certain future uses of their personal data. If publishers object to or withdraw consent for the use of personal data or if publishers request their personal data be deleted or that its processing be restricted, Jehovah’s Witnesses may continue to use some personal data based on their legitimate religious purposes or on another lawful ground provided for in the Data Protection Law. Publishers are aware that they have a right to lodge a complaint with the data protection supervisory authority in the country in which they currently reside.

Jehovah’s Witnesses have adopted various procedural and technical safeguards, in accordance with the Data Protection Law, to protect personal data. Publishers understand that their personal data will be accessed only by a limited number of authorized persons to fulfill the above purposes, except for the names of those having assignments being available in the congregation meetings.

Any inquiries to the relevant data protection officer may be sent via email to the following address:

DataProtectionOfficer.AO@jw.org

Publishers understand that the identity of and contact information for the data controller in the country in which they reside, and where applicable, of its representative and its data protection officer, can be found on the Data Protection Contacts page of jw.org.

It may be that data practices of Jehovah’s Witnesses change from time to time because of changes to certain religious activities, to the law, or in the use of technology. If ever it becomes necessary to change this Use of Personal Data page, those changes will be posted on this page so that publishers are always aware of what information is collected and how it is used. Please check back from time to time for changes to this page.