The same goes for situations like bankruptcies and 'bad leavers', there is absolutely no way short of airtight procedures and implementations to guard your privacy over the length the data resides with some company. And for most companies that means 'forever' so even the smallest chances tend to sooner or later materialize. In almost every company that I've looked at over the last couple of years (including medical, fintech and so on) there was always at least one person and usually more that had unfettered access to all the data, either in bulk or through some convenient interface.
I'm not even sure this can be fixed anymore, but I am also not going to give up.
The standard example is how the Netherlands were rather religiously tolerant, but used to keep track of Jews for tax collection purposes before WW2. Then when the Nazis arrived, they had all the records they needed to achieve their goals.
Who knows what will happen in the future, and how currently harmless data could be used by new actors then.
I wrote about that exact example:
It used to be common to tax different religions in a different way in some countries of Europe. Even today in Germany you are legally required to pay taxes to your church, and I have read multiple accounts of French expatriates who have discovered this only after a year of working in Germany, and getting significant amounts of back taxes to pay, as well as being required to be debaptised, etc, if they wanted to stop paying for that.
In France that would be unthinkable, but every country has its customs.
1. If it bothers the Germans, why don't they change it? Is there some concordat that makes it difficult?
2. Do I really have a right to comment given that I'm not German? Does it really makes sense for you to apply what are presumably post-revolution, secular French standards to Germany?
3. "co-opted by the church to act as their debt collectors " -- sounds conspiratorial. You think the Church is all-powerful and able to do that? Tithing isn't new.
4. "disgusting and no longer of this day and age" -- appeals to time period are rather silly. We're not talking about fashion, and it's important not to fall prey to the Idol of Progress.
5. Interesting that more religious countries, like Germany's neighbor Poland, have no such tax.
The church is still very powerful in Germany.
> Do I really have a right to comment given that I'm not German?
You have a right to your opinion about what is happening in a country even if you are not living there.
> Does it really makes sense for you to apply what are presumably post-revolution, secular French standards to Germany?
It is fairly exceptional to see the state harnessed to do a private institution's bidding like this.
> "co-opted by the church to act as their debt collectors " -- sounds conspiratorial. You think the Church is all-powerful and able to do that? Tithing isn't new.
That it isn't new doesn't mean there is a place for it today. The state and the church should be firmly separated. In Germany this is - not yet - the case.
> "disgusting and no longer of this day and age" -- appeals to time period are rather silly. We're not talking about fashion, and it's important not to fall prey to the Idol of Progress.
It's not the 15th century any more.
> Interesting that more religious countries, like Germany's neighbor Poland, have no such tax.
My point exactly.
To be clear, this is public profile information displayed to any user of the Grindr app.
There's a very strong chance that this is illegal in many states in the US as well (not sure about federal law).