WIBU to ask guide leader to change the way she emails?

[SockYarn]

DD goes to guides. Or rather doesn't go to Guides at the moment because of Covid. The guide leader has been trying to keep things going by emailing out weekly packs, and setting up Zoom meetings at notmal guide times. All great.

But when she emails, she puts every parent's email address in the "to" field. So I can see everyone's email addresses, and everyone can see mine. Most of the emails are very identifiable as most people use the firstname.surname@ emailprovider.com format with underscores or numbers or something.

I'm not that happy about it, but on the other hand I really appreciate the unpaid volunteering she does for the guides and how hard she's working to keep it going when they can't have proper meetings.

Set up an alias and ask her to use that? You can ask but it might not be well received or she might not have the time/skill to bcc.

Yes just email her and request she use bcc in future.

She shouldn’t be doing this as it’s a breach of GDPR and Guide volunteers have been told this, though sometimes the message can be hard to filter down to all volunteers.

Just be kind in your response and maybe highlight she should be using bcc and all is good.

I have had to do this before for a couple of my kids clubs.

Why would you care? What do you think other parents are going to do with your email address?

It's contrary to GDPR, which applies to voluntary organisations as well as businesses. The secretary of our PTA used to do this. I emailed her, claiming I'd recently done some trining at work and just found out we shouldn't be doing that. A bit of haha, it's all a bit of a pain but we need to use bcc and it was sorted.

What's she's doing is not actually legal as far as I understand it. Explain and ask her to stop. She only needs to copy the list of names into BCC. It's not complicated.

Unless there is someone on there who you genuinely do not want to contact you then definitely do not. Or as a PO said, set up a new email and ask her to do that. Otherwise you’ll be a PITA and if I was spending my unpaid time doing that I would be upset with you (regardless of rules).

Well it is generally poor practice, so the leader should be told. I've made the 'not bcc'ing' mistake with a group of unrelated people before, someone politely alterted me to the fact and I was grateful that they did.

Huge breach of GDPR regulations, and if anyone made an official complaint she could get her arse handed to her.

All she has to do is put her own address onto the To field and everyone's address into the bcc field.

You could point it out to her in a helpful way... not wanting her to get into bother... someone else was grumbling about it...?

Maybe you could present it as a GDPR issue, in a friendly, 'heads up' manner?

It's not something I'd be hugely bothered about on a personal level, but say Ms J is having issues with Ms Y and uses the email address to send a kicking offy email...

Seriously do you not all understand that i might not want some random person to have my email address? Offended or not, learn to do it right.

I care because I use my email address for work stuff. I have a separate email which I use for stuff like signing up for newsletters or creating accounts for delivery sites. My "proper" email is for work, school stuff and the kids' extra-curricular stuff.

I don't know who all these parents are who are seeing my email address. I wouldn't write it on a piece of paper and put it through their door, but the leader is sending it out every week. It just takes one of them to have a virus or something, be careless with their passwords and I get bombarded with spam or hacking attempts.

I wouldn't like that. There's always one loon who could save the list 'just in case' and bombard people with emails. But it's done now.

I honestly cannot see a problem with this. But if you don't want your email appearing to everyone just tell her.

Guide Leader here, she should be using the bcc field. It's not good practice to send out emails as you have described (could also be considered a GDPR breach).
I would politely ask her to change the way she sends them.
Guides have also recently issued guidance to leaders about safe ways to continue with online Guides during lockdown.

And of course you'll always have that one person who ALWAYS does Reply To All...

Our scout leaders have done similar except it’s on WhatsApp. All the parents phone numbers are visible to everyone. I’m not altogether comfortable with it but I don’t want to be the knob who complains.

Girlguiding volunteer here. We've all been told (repeatedly) about GDPR, and particularly BCC'ing email addresses. A polite email to her pointing it out, and reminding her it's against Girlguiding policy, should be sufficient. I've had to report data breaches before (in work contexts as well as volunteering) and a polite email early on is better than potential later consequences! Yes we are volunteers, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't follow GDPR.

I did this once on a group email and someone gently pulled me up on it. I was very grateful as it hadn't even occurred to me to do it a different way and of course not everyone wants their email address out there.

Lots of people don't seem to know how or why to bcc. She really needs a polite explanation.

I'd send her a friendly email with a 'Thanks so much for X,Y Z. Matilda loved doing the activity. Here are some photos of her art works. By the way, I just thought I should let you know because I'd hate the Guides to get in trouble when you're doing such a great job, but when you email you should bcc ... etc.

Yes drop her a line along the lines of "I am not sure if you are aware that your method of emailing breaches not only GDPR rules but also the Guiding Policy. The way to get around it is to send the email to yourself and BCC the parents. I would hate for you to get in trouble etc etc"

Definitely not unreasonable.
She doesn’t even need to put her own email address in the to box, and it won’t take her any extra time. All she needs to is put the addresses in the Bcc box instead of to. No skill to it. I’m sure no one will mind if you gently ask and others will be grateful. Stops the dreaded ‘reply all’ as well.

Beaver scout leader here and yes it’s a breach of GDPR and we are told not to do it. As a leader I wouldn’t take much offence at a nicely worded email asking that further emails are done by blind copy.

I'm a leader in scouting and we always use bcc to keep within GDPR etc. Guide leaders should be doing the same, but she may well be one of the many volunteers trying to juggle work, home schooling, looking after older relatives etc and also keeping the group going- so I'd be very gentle when mentioning this. Perhaps you could e-mail her and make a big deal of how wonderful it is that she's continuing with guides at the moment, how valued it is, how busy she must be etc etc. Lots of praise and thanks. Then just throw in that if it's not too difficult could she use bcc for e-mails in future. You could blame work- say you use your work e-mail as that's the one you can check all the time but work (horrid kill joys) have asked you to be careful putting your e-mail on group e-mails for security reasons.
I'd not start quoting GDPR right now if you can help it.

You're quite right on both counts - gdpr breach and amazing volunteer.
I'd be tempted to tell a small white lie and go back to her and say for personal reasons you can't have your email in the public domain. Please can she bcc you in future.
I wouldn't quote girl guiding regs at her

YANBU at all and there are plenty of reasons why OP might not want her email address shared with a bunch of randomers.

This is why GDPR exists.

I would call, be really nice about something, slip in about how she should be using BCC, then close on something nice. Shit sandwich.