[Chapter-delegates] ISOC Business Rules]

[Hans P. Dittler]

Hi all,

(sorry for a possible double post - I used the wrong source address this
morning)

I try to follow this discussion and look into it from my (German/European)
point of view:

If a group of people just decides to come together, become global members of
ISOC and apply for a chapter-status - all is fine no problems or legal
barriers involved, everybody decides on his own to trust a US-based
organizations and its data processing when he puts its personal data into
the system.

Different situation here: a group of people decides to come together, some
of them global members others not and start an entity following local law (a
Verein here in Germany). This entity then applies and is recognized as a
chapter of ISOC - this legal body in Germany has still to follow rules and
laws here in Germany.

As a chapter we have to follow ISOC-rules and we have to urge or propose to
all our members to become global members of ISOC if this is required by the
business rules in future. If we don't like this, we either loose chapter
state or loose members who do not like these rules at some future point in
time.
OK - that is the way an organization tightens up its rules - no real
problem.

The nitpicks about data and safe harbor result from another place:
We could move our membership handling to the US under safe harbor rules
(even if some of our members would not like this step, and the membership
system cant fulfill all our needs like handling mailing lists at present),
this would be like outsourcing the processing of passenger data or analyzing
customer data abroad.

But we cannot act on behalf of our members and put their data into the
membership system making them global members. 

This is not about moving data to the US, this is making them members of
something else as the legal body they joined in Germany. (This would also be
illegal if ISOC global would be in Europe or even in Germany)
ISOC.DE is seen from German law not as part or subsidiary of ISOC globally.
ISOC.DE is a local legal body, which has adopted some rules from ISOC
international but is still a third party acting independently.

German law requires us to have an explicit consent (written or at least a
checkbox marked) from each individual for such a step.

I hope this makes our problem a little bit more visible and understandable

Hans Peter Dittler
Member of the board
ISOC.DE
Internet Society German Chapter e.V