Personalized letter from Jehovah’s Witnesses leaves privacy-focused woman unnerved

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This article was published 05/08/2022 (1165 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg woman who prizes her privacy is unnerved after her husband received a personally addressed letter from the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The woman — who asked not to be identified — received the letter in her southeast Winnipeg community mailbox recently.

“I found it intrusive,” she said, noting it was hand-addressed, using her husband’s first name.

“Someone has information about us. I don’t like it,” she said, adding she and her husband have gone to some lengths to make sure their personal information is not publicly available.

This includes signing up for “do not call” lists and not being on the online Canada411 website.

If the letter, which contained promotional material about the church, had been addressed to “occupant” or “homeowner,” she wouldn’t be as concerned.

“But this shows that someone has his name and knows where we live,” she said. “We are private people. We want our privacy respected.”

The letter, signed by “your friend, Deb,” did not have a return address.

She tried to contact local Kingdom Halls — the name Jehovah’s Witnesses give to their meeting places — but got no replies.

“I don’t know how they got his name,” she said.

Beyond causing her worry, she thinks it’s wrong for the church to contact people this way.

“They have no right to try to get people to look into their faith,” said the woman, who is a member of the United Church of Canada. “If I want to know more, I will go on their website or contact a Kingdom Hall.”

When told about the incident, Joel Ramcharan, a spokesperson for the church in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, expressed regret.

“I am sorry she feels upset,” he said.

He explained the church started sending letters in March 2020 when the pandemic hit.

“We realized early on we wouldn’t be able to do our traditional door-to-door visiting,” he said, noting the church pivoted to sending letters instead.

While he has no knowledge of the Winnipeg situation, he said using first names is a way for letter writers to “warm up” a letter, to make it feel less impersonal.

That information comes from publicly available lists, he said, or sometimes people share it when talking to members of the church on their front porches.

“Sometimes people share their name and contact information with us,” he said, adding no one should be concerned about their privacy.

“Don’t worry, we aren’t tracking people, don’t have a database of names,” Ramcharan said.

As to why they send letters in the first place, “the messages are meant to convey hope for the future,” he said, adding “thousands and thousands of letters” have been sent since 2020.

If someone requests to not be contacted, “We will respect that,” he noted.

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