HOURGLASS!--What Do We Know About It?

by Atlantis 10 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Atlantis

  Your assistance and opinions will be very much appreciated. A friend sent me the information listed below wanting to bring some attention to the website HOURGLASS.

  I myself know very little about the site other than the information I received today. Perhaps there are others here that could shed some light.

  Is this a dangerous site? Is data being shared without consent? Just what do we know about this site?

  Here is the message I received:

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  This involves mainly active JWs.
  
  There is a JW in the USA who has created and runs a program called HOURGLASS.
  
  Basically it holds ALL the publishers confidential data (including
  date of birth, email home address, phone numbers, sex, report cards
  etc) on his servers in the USA, without the majority of the
  publishers' knowledge or consent.
  
  This is a HUGE breach of the Data Protection Law let alone the new
  European GDPR.
  
  I contacted him once asking him to remove my data to which he replied
  that he is only able to remove data for accounts that have been set up
  individually. In my case I would need to contact the congregation
  secretary for him to manually remove the data he entered about me...
  [which he won't do and in my opinion is just passing the buck as the
  program is the owners responsibility.
  
  According to ICO in the UK
  https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/principle-8-international/
  the DPA guarantees...
  “Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory
  outside the EEA unless that country or territory ensures an adequate
  level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in
  relation to the processing of personal data.”
  
  So the Hourglass program already has breached this law. Then look at
  the Hourglass privacy policy:
  https://www.hourglass-app.com/static/privacy.html
  
  You have no rights to access, oppose, correct or delete your data,
  which is a must even for foreign countries like the USA if they hold
  data on European citizens.
  
  I know this will mainly apply to active JWs but it also applies to
  ex-JWs and inactive JWs as their personal data is being stored in this
  program without their consent.
  
  
  Link to Hourglass info on Google Play:
  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hourglass_app.hourglasstime
  
  
  
  Atlantis!
  
• 

  zeb

  Given the wt is ever telling of the end this site would be a treasure trove of contacts to go and round up.

  creepy big time..and some one feeling so important.

  Re logging hours. There was a court case in the state of Victoria where the wt lawyer stated along these lines that no elder no servant requires any pub to log their hours. It is of their own personal mission.
• 

  Atlantis

  zeb:

  Thank you for your assistance!

  Atlantis!
• 

  Gorbatchov

  Is this from jw org?

  Seems 3th party.

  G.
• 

  Anders Andersen

  Atlantis,

  Afaik there's nothing wrong here from the legal point of view.

  Under GDPR, hourglass is responsible for keeping the data stored with them safe without sharing it with other parties, but it's the congregations that collect the data and have it stored at their behalf. So the congregations are responsible for maintaining, deleting, etc.

  As long as the congregations properly inform their victims where their data is stored, how, and why, gdpr is followed.

  Compare this with web server providers: the providers are responsible for keeping any data stored with them safe, but they are not expected (or even allowed) to honor data removal requests for any of the websites their customers are running on their servers.

  Or email: you can't ask microsoft to remove any data from my email box that I may have collected on you. You have to ask me.

  From a JW POV this site is highly questionable of course.
• 

  Atlantis

  Gorbatchov:

  It looks 3rd party to me to so I don't think it is part of jw.org. But you never know these days.

  Anders Andersen:

  Thank you for the information. Your help is most appreciated. I am glad you are up to date with all this data stuff. It can sure cause a lot of confusion and stress trying to keep up with it all.

  Atlantis!
• 

  zeb

  This recording of hours business as required:

  https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/217697/jws-crowd-gasped-australian-court
• 

  Doug Mason

  Have you "Googled" with this expression?

  hourglass jehovah

  Doug

  =============

  The term "hourglass" rang a very ancient bell. Somewhere, somehow, I obtained a list from a site that is now defunct. Most probably a deeply colored red herring.

  http://www.jwstudies.com/The_List_from_Hourglass.pdf
  
• 

  AverageJoe1

  I'm not sure I agree with your point Anders (or more than likely I've misunderstood it):

  1) As long as the congregations properly inform their victims where their data is stored, how, and why, gdpr is followed.

  2) Compare this with web server providers: the providers are responsible for keeping any data stored with them safe, but they are not expected (or even allowed) to honor data removal requests for any of the websites their customers are running on their servers.

  1) That's the point. The Rank & File have no idea that their data is stored this way! Even if you're an inactive JW then all your data is still on here!

  2) What about all the DCMA notices that Google responds to? The former owner of AvoidJw.org was found out because both Google and GoDaddy ratted him out the moment WT complained to them.
• 

  stillin

  Could this be just a tool that congregation secretaries can use to compile their publisher info? People could report their activity each month without having to catch up with the elders. It wouldn't have any data on anybody that has not reported time unless some over-zealous secretary sat down and manually transferred all of the data from every publisher who has ever reported time in his congregation.

  Just a guess...