Data Privacy Letter - 20 Aug 2017

From: Tom Schmid (Democrats Abroad) 
Date: Sun, Aug 20, 2017 at 11:55 AM
Subject: [★Leadership★] DA Confidentiality Agreements

As leaders of your country committees (Chairs, Vice Chairs, and Counsel), we need your help to ensure that we're maintaining the privacy of our members. In sum, please make sure that all volunteers who handle data have properly signed and submitted a DA Confidentiality Agreement and that all volunteers (including officers) comply with the terms of the agreement. Failure to comply may result in revocation of privileges to access and handle membership information.

You and your fellow officers are responsible for ensuring that the privacy of the members in your country is maintained. For those in an EU country, you also must ensure that you comply with the EU data privacy regulation as well as your respective country’s data privacy laws. Our members entrust us, Democrats Abroad, with their personal information -- from name to date of birth. This information is legally considered confidential and personal information subject to the relevant Data Protection laws.

On our website, we state:

3. Privacy of Membership Data
When handling the personal information about members of Democrats Abroad, DA Officials should:
i) respect the privacy rights of members to their personal information and only collect, use, and retain such personal information necessary for the business of Democrats Abroad; 

ii) provide adequate safeguards to prevent the abuse or misuse of the personal information of the members of Democrats Abroad. Examples of misuse include disclosure of information in return for monetary rewards, or use of information for personal professional, or commercial interests. Use or disclosure of personal data without the consent of the interested party may result in liabilities for breach of the Privacy Policy of Democrats Abroad and applicable Data Protection Laws. 


Data Privacy isn’t about keeping secrets, it’s about ensuring the protection of private information from being unlawfully transmitted to outside sources. Our members should not have to worry about looking at a personalized email or receiving an unexpected phone call and wonder, “How did they know that?”

DA has a confidentiality agreement (“CA”) that is easily accessible on the wiki pages of our website. 
https://wiki.democratsabroad.org/display/MembDBcnda/Confidentiality+Agreement+Uploads
Anyone with, or who needs access to, member data must have a CA on file with DA.

Here is a short FAQ on the basic requirements for data privacy at DA. Even if you have been an active member for many years, we ask that you please read this carefully.

Q: Who needs to have a signed CA on file with the international IT Team?
A: All Country Chairs, all local Chapter Chairs, and anyone requiring administrative access to the database and/or posting rights on the website.

Q: What member data is confidential? 
A: EVERYTHING. Names, phone numbers, emails, address, etc. – in essence, all the personal information that we ask our members to give us.
This includes:
Any printed lists with names and/or other member information
Any digital file with a list of names and/or other member information.

Q: What about the local person checking off names at the local meeting, or the local volunteers who are calling people or knocking on doors? 
A: Please have these people sign the CA. Country chairs should keep and update a list with the names of the local volunteers who sign a CA, and keep a copy of these signed CA’s.

Please distribute this letter to your local chapter chairs, so that they are also made aware of the importance and requirements of keeping our members’ data safe. Please note that sharing database administration logins or website posting logins is not permitted, and that access will be revoked for anyone doing so.

We must keep the trust and confidence of our members. Please help us to do so by complying with these guidelines, and do not ask our global teams (who are also volunteers) to violate their confidentiality agreements by “bending the rules”. Harry Truman used to say - “The buck stops here”, and indeed the buck does stop with you as a country committee officer.

Best regards,

Tom Schmid
International Counsel
Democratic Party Committee Abroad