Morality of Church Keylogging

[HappyHope]

**Update/Clarification: This includes home networks unconnected to church networks except when tithing online.

I want to present the case of the morality or immorality of churches using keylogging. This is a technology that records every key stroke one makes on their computer. Some companies and institutions can legally keylog employees on work computers but there are also illegal methods and situations where keylogging is used too.

I have come across churches using keylogging not just for those in church leadership or their volunteers but for regular church attenders. They then take their findings and tweak sermons according to the information gained. I can see pros and cons.

Pros: Monitor youth/children's ministry volunteers for the safety reasons. Monitor other church leaders concerning habits that could jeopardize their ministry (adulterous digital footprints/ abundant orders of alcohol suggesting alcoholism...etc... The argument could be made if you have nothing to hide, you should not object to keylogging. Pastors would be more in touch with the goings on in their congregations in order to customize sermons and biblical passages.

Cons: Human Nature tends to abuse power even with good intentions. Pastors and church leaders might misinterpret keylogging data. Perhaps pulpit taunts could happen over differences in the theological nonessentials unrelated to salvation. Or extreme cases where keylogging data is misinterpreted and innocent individuals are removed from their ministry calling without any understanding of why and little to no room for biblical recourse as in Matthew 18 because their "trial" was secretly completed behind closed doors over misunderstood keylogging data. Also, any keylogged information like personal struggles with one's body or emotional health are recorded for church keyloggers. Financial calculations are available for keyloggers to view too. Pastors perversely flirting with or flaming congregants over keylogged information.

My view: I know it's a new world and technology can be a help or a hindrance. Personally, keylogging unsuspecting church attenders seems like an intensely intimate violation even for completely innocent Christian targets. But I can see how some would argue for the use of keylogging today for safety and accountability in the church. I would love to know what other Christians think.

 

[pleinmont]

I want to present the case of the morality or immorality of churches using keylogging. This is a technology that records every key stroke one makes on their computer. Some companies and institutions can legally keylog employees on work computers but there are also illegal methods and situations where keylogging is used too.

I have come across churches using keylogging not just for those in church leadership or their volunteers but for regular church attenders. They then take their findings and tweak sermons according to the information gained. I can see pros and cons.

Pros: Monitor youth/children's ministry volunteers for the safety reasons. Monitor other church leaders concerning habits that could jeopardize their ministry (adulterous digital footprints/ abundant orders of alcohol suggesting alcoholism...etc... The argument could be make if you have nothing to hide, you should not object to keylogging. Pastors would be more in touch with the goings on in their congregations in order to customize sermons and biblical passages.

Cons: Human Nature tends to abuse power even with good intentions. Pastors and church leaders might misinterpret keylogging data. Perhaps pulpit taunts could happen over differences in the theological nonessentials unrelated to salvation. Or extreme cases where keylogging data is misinterpreted and innocent individuals are removed from their ministry calling without any understanding of why and little to no room for biblical recourse as in Matthew 18 because their "trial" was secretly completed behind closed doors over misunderstood keylogging data. Also, any keylogged information like personal struggles with one's body or emotional health are recorded for church keyloggers. Financial calculations are available for keyloggers to view too. Pastors perversely flirting with or flaming congregants keylogged information.

My view: I know it's a new world and technology can be a help or a hindrance. Personally, the use of keylogging unsuspecting church attenders seems like an intensely intimate violation even for completely innocent Christian targets. But I can see how some would argue for the use of keylogging today for safety and accountability in the church. I would love to know what other Christians think.

That should be totally illegal!

 

[HARK!]

How did these churches ever get access to their members computers? Did they hack them? If the churches are keylogging on computers which are church property; then I would say they are within their right.

 

[com7fy8]

I have come across churches using keylogging not just for those in church leadership or their volunteers but for regular church attenders.

If you mean to have key logging in computers which are church property . . . this can be the same as having security cameras. There can be dishonest church people who use computers to get lists of members and other private things. So, key logging can help prevent this. Also, there might be people who would enter a computer at church, in order to bring in malware for the person's future use; key logging might detect or prevent this . . . I suppose.

And people can do private things at home.

I would say any person authorized to use a church computer should be advised that it is key logged. But if someone sneaks into a computer and does not know he or she is being key logged, that is the person's own fault.

 

[com7fy8]

Monitor other church leaders concerning habits that could jeopardize their ministry (adulterous digital footprints/ abundant orders of alcohol suggesting alcoholism...etc... The argument could be made if you have nothing to hide, you should not object to keylogging. Pastors would be more in touch with the goings on in their congregations in order to customize sermons and biblical passages.

This seems like church members and leaders would be allowing the church to put key logging in their home computers. I would think each individual would need to allow this; so this would be each person's choice.

But the Holy Spirit is able to have a pastor know the sheep and leaders, and in prayer receive what is needed in sermons. Often a pastor can get input of the Holy Spirit, right during a sermon . . . maybe when a visitor not key logged is attending . . . so the message can help the visitor.

So, if you think you need key logging > the Holy Spirit can do better

And, of course, once ones know they are being key logged, they can rig computer activity to get the pastor to suppose what they want the pastor to think about them!

If we know Jesus' voice, Jesus is not going to fool us about leaders and members and who to marry and who to trust. But if ones depend on key logging because they do not know our Shepherd's voice . . . there are many other ways they can be fooled, too.

 

[Hammster]

I have come across churches using keylogging not just for those in church leadership or their volunteers but for regular church attenders.

How many, and how did you come across this info?

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

thread clean

shalom

 

[Hazelelponi]

The only computers anyone can keylog are those computers they own and pay for.

If the church allows free access to a number of computers owned by them and connected to the internet they pay for, it is within their rights to also keylog those computers as well as the computers being used for church/work purposes.

You don't have to trust that no one is using your equipment for nefarious purposes. The Christian is to give everything they can to one another, but there's no biblical mandate to believe everything everyone tells you whether they are Christian or not.

A church has the right to make certain their computers aren't being used for inappropriate contentographic purposes or otherwise immoral activities.

If a church can give a sermon on it, it's more likely than not being given on moral issues am I right?

So if someone is using the churches computers to gossip about the brethren, be glad it's only a sermon they are being given on the topic, and not simply removed from the privilege of using the churches computers for anything at all..

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

thread clean

shalom

 

[Hazelelponi]

Ask someone who is a hacker about this. It has not been true ever since the electronic games came out , long before computers.

If churches are hacking other people's computers they have far more to worry about than moral issues as they would be actively breaking the law.. (both a crime and a sin).

I find the prospect of there being a ton of churches engaging in such illegal activities dubious at best.

Most people post everything they do and think on Facebook though, and that is public once posted. It's no crime to pay attention to church members' Facebook and other social media pages to see the kind of people they are and the things they are openly engaging in.

 

[Paulos23]

Another reason for me to avoid churches. I would not let any origination keylog me on my personal devices.

 

[FriendlyToast]

Ask someone who is a hacker about this. It has not been true ever since the electronic games came out , long before computers.


MANY millions of people have had their identities, financial information, banking and credit cards information, all their passwords, all their pictures, all their files
stolen by hackers, often by AUTOMATIC BOTS (as search this forum and others).

As a software developer, I can assure you unless you do really questionable things on the Internet, you won't be keylogged.

It's not as easy as Hollywood makes it look to "hack" people. If you're using the church computer, well then you accept that they have their own software install, just like my employer has his own software installed on my work machine.

 

[com7fy8]

Anyone who knows me does not need to key log me

Jesus knows His sheep, and I understand that His pastors know the sheep God is trusting to their care. And the sheep know the example of their pastor >

"nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock." (1 Peter 5:3)

Key logging, then, can be a way of lording over . . . if someone is dependent on info from key logging because he or she is incapable of making sure with God about people.

But, yes, it can help with surveillance security, in case, among other things, people getting social services might be allowed to use computers so they can get personal business done.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

thread clean

shalom

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

shalom

 

[crossnote]

Seems to me Churches should entrust their suspicions to the Lord instead of sneakily spy on others. This seems to be akin to David numbering Israel...relying on our own strength and wisdom rather than the Lord's.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

shalom

 

[anna ~ grace]

I think we had a woman on here concerned that her Pastor had done just that. He'd gotten ahold of everyone's phones, returned them, and then mysteriously began preaching on exactly what parishioners had been discussing at home and / or searching for on their phones. And claiming that God had given him prophetic insight, rather than admitting to hacking / spying on their devices. It was creepy.

 

[anna ~ grace]

Question about my pastor who locked my phone

 

[Hazelelponi]

A reported several years ago was 'allowed' to go to a 'secret' (or secure) google server site (humongous computers) to see what they have there.

They allowed her to type her id into one of the inside terminals to see what they had on her.

Everything .

Everything she had EVER typed into any computer connected to the internet.

Yes, Everything - every address, every email, every password, every account, every word ever entered into the computer while online (and often while off line, then later connected) .

Look. Not even the government installs a keylogger into people's personal computers without a search warrant.

what the government does is run word searches of key words across the internet, and when those words pop up in varying order, the internet post gets flagged and analyzed to see if it's a threat to national security.

As a result, some dangers are potentially missed, and some non-dangers looked into as it's not perfect nor thorough.

A church doesn't have such capabilities and to say they have bots running around or a system of hacking each individual church members computer is just silly really.

I'm "freinds" online with several of my churches members, deacons and elders included, and if I exhibited behavior that was unbefitting a Christian, they would be first to know and it wouldn't bother me to hear a sermon I may need to hear.

But I'm not running around declaring criminal activity out of them without any proof, just presumption. And that's all this is, a thread running around presuming most churches in America have high level hackers on staff, all the better to spy on you with, when most churches are doing good just to pay their pastors and staff.