Month: May 2018

A reader of this blog has called my attention that something looks rather odd with the website of the World Orienteering Day (WOD). The volunteers who sign up cannot opt out from being included on mailing lists that are probably marketing oriented. I asked some legal experts of this field, and they confirmed that the WOD website is on the wrong side of the law, at least in Europe.

According to the lawyers with expertise in internet and data protection, the WOD website blatantly violates the Europe level law of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the EU), coming into effect on 25 May. I dutifully passed this information on the IOF’s President and CEO, since they are the ones responsible for the lawful operations of the IOF.

According to the lawyers, the website also violates current EU guidelines on internet data use, thus chances are that it also violates existing Swedish laws, but they did not have time to dig into that. After all, it does not really matter. The big issue is whether the website complies the law coming into power on 25 May.

The GDPR requires that not only the current WOD website should be changed, but all data collected on the current website in a non-GDPR compliant way should be deleted before 25 May. All names, phone numbers, email addresses should go, unless explicit consent is obtained, one by one, from the volunteers signed up so far.

The current website forces consent from volunteers in a very deceiving way by showing a pre-checked tick box to accept that the user is included on mailing lists for information from the IOF and its partners. The above picture shows the deceiving check box. The little “forbidden” sign at the base of the cursor indicates that the box is frozen. It cannot be unchecked.  In addition, there is nothing to clarify what “relevant information” may mean.

All this does not look like an accidental mistake, but it gives the feeling of a premeditated deception showing the look of a legally compliant request for permission, while it does not give the legally required choice to the user.

This is bad news.

Unfortunately, it is not surprising.

The IOF leadership has a rich track record of doing and tolerating practices that may raise serious questions. I shared some of these stories in earlier posts here and here. Judging by this track record there are no assurances that meaningful action will be taken. Chances are that the IOF leadership will hope to “get away” with it.

That would be worse news.

The IOF may not be in the primary focus of a GDPR audit, but the breach of the law and its apparently intentional nature is rather obvious for people involved in this subject. Although the new GDPR regulation may have been inspired by marketing practices, it is taken very seriously even by charities and voluntary organisations across Europe in their effort to redesign communication with their volunteers. For example, the RNLI, a charity where I am involved as a volunteer crew member, has made it very clear to each and every of its members that compliance with GDPR is taken very seriously across the organisation both in internal and external communications. The RNLI has an almost 200 year long history with a reputation and social respect head and shoulders above all sports organisations.  Yet, they did not try to “get away” with ignoring the law. Maybe, that is one of the reasons why they have a far superior reputation.

The EU has significantly increased the fines on data protection related matters. Violation of the GDPR  carries serious legal, financial and reputational risk. The fines are several magnitude higher than they were previously: up to €20 million if there has been an infringement of the basic principles, including conditions of consent and data subjects’ rights, i.e. the exact situation with the WOD website. Compare this to the so far record fine of £400,000 for data protection violation in the UK. Apparently the regulators across the EU got pissed off by various entities who tried to “get away” with violating the law.

Needless to stay that even 1% of that maximum fine of €20 million could be lethal to the IOF in its current, rather shaky financial condition.

Is it worth the risk?

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Below you may read more details on the nature of the WOD website’s violation of the GDPR. A more detailed description of the situation and an assessment whether it was more likely an accidental mistake or a deliberate deception of the user.

Continue reading “IOF’s World Orienteering Day website on the wrong side of the law”

In my last post about World Orienteering Day I expressed my doubts that anybody outside the IOF is really interested in the World Orienteering Day(s) for achieving another “World Record” of most participants on a multi venue orienteering event.

But let’s assume for a moment that somebody, a potential sponsor, a journalist, or IOC official gets interested in this metric. If they start to scratch the surface of IOF propaganda, they are in for a nasty surprise: the world records claimed are not verified despite the original aspiration of the IOF. In addition, the underlying numbers show failing participation masked by the unbelievably large numbers from Turkey.

The failed aspiration

People interested in offbeat world records traditionally look for the Guinness World Records as guidance. People looking for an independent confirmation of a verified orienteering participation record are in for a surprise:

The verified world record for most participants belong to a 2003 school event by the Swiss Orienteering Association, not to the WOD 2016 or 2017 as claimed by IOF press releases.

(see the above link here)

The IOF was of course aware of this record. In December 2015 it clearly stated that
“In connection with the World Orienteering Day 2016, the IOF has a vision to set a new Guinness World Record. The current record is from the WOC 2003 in Switzerland, when 207,979 young people at 1381 locations ran an orienteering course. “. 

The IOF leadership set out to break the Guinness World Record, but failing it just kept boasting with an “IOF” World Record. Just another example of the IOF propaganda claiming results even when they fail their own aspirations.

It is unclear if the IOF has actually tried to break the official Guinness World Record, but did not succeed with verification, or did not even try to deliver on its aspiration. But the aspiration was clear – and the IOF failed to achieve it. Yet, the IOF leadership kept talking about new world records both in 2016 and in 2017. Not a very sportsmanly approach, to say the least…

Of course, it is not easy to break a verified world record. Surprisingly, there are rules. Evidence required includes “For a mass participation record we require Stewards to supervise groups of 50 or fewer participants […] You need to upload all Steward Statements as part of your evidence. If your mass participation record involves more than 5,000 people, the counting process must be done by an auditing firm. etc, etc.”

So there could be very good reasons why an event like the WOD, focused more on promotion of the sport, does not attempt to achieve a verified world record. The focus of WOD should be on participation and fun, not on administration.

But then why claim new “world records”? Whom are we kidding?

Unfortunately, verification (or lack of it) is only part of the story.

Continue reading “IOF claimed new World Record after failing own aspiration to set one”

Before writing about the World Orienteering Day again, I have to stress that it is a great idea. It appears to be a good vehicle to organise orienteering events for communities, especially for schools, where sometimes all you need is a “good reason” to get things in motion.

The problem is the desperate hype around it. The desperation to claim another “World Record” of participation. It as a self-declared, self-reported world record that has no value outside self-congratulatory IOF press releases. It just reminds me too much of the Soviet hype I saw in my childhood, and the American hype I experienced in the beginning of my professional life.

This is a minor topic amongst the issues around the IOF, but it illustrates very well the mindset of the leadership: a desperate demonstration of results where the picture looks very different when you scratch the surface; a focus on meaningless numbers to avoid an honest discussion about the real issues.

This is the same mindset that decided to present great looking IOF financial plans in 2016 to the General Assembly that soon after turned out to be lightyears from reality.

Last year the oversized ambition of the IOF leadership has fallen flat on its face as discussed earlier. Overall participation has increased thanks only to the unbelievably high numbers of Turkey. In fact, participation for the rest of the World has even decreased from 203,519 (2016) to 201,571 (2017). Far-far away from the declared ambition of the IOF President of 500,000 participants.

The 500,000 participation level dreamt up by the IOF leadership looked beyond reach even for 2018. They were desperate to find a solution. And they did!

The Council has declared that World Orienteering Day in 2018 will start on 23 May and will last till 29 May. Stretching WOD over a week, but keeping the WOD name for continuity instead of introducing WOW, World Orienteering Week.

 

There are good reasons to extend the event over a week instead of keeping it on a single day. In some countries it may be difficult to organise these types of school events during weekdays, in some others it may be difficult during weekends. It gives lot’s of flexibility to organisers to adapt the idea to the local environment while keeping the “urgency” element of an internationally coordinated event. But why shall one still call it a “Day” instead of a “Week”?

No particular reasons were given in the Council meeting minutes #185. It was simply declared that the branding of the event stays the same. After all it has a long-long brand history stretching over a grand total of two occasions.

The WOD slogan “Be part of something bigger” has acquired a completely new meaning.

Have you ever been part of a day that lasted for a week?

The only benefit one may think about is that this way the optics would be just perfect. Overwhelming participation on WOD 2018 compared to WOD 2017. The IOF target of 500 000 participants, at 5000 locations in 100 countries becomes quite achievable, especially when organisers encourage even “normal O-training” done anytime during the week to be declared as a WOD event. Anything goes, as long as they increase the headline number to achieve the President’s vision of 500,000.

One example is the recent email from the British Orienteering Federation sent to clubs explaining “Your club can simply be involved by tagging on the words ‘World Orienteering Day’ to fixtures planned to take place on Wednesday 23 May through to Wednesday 30 May 2018 on the fixtures list on the British Orienteering website“. No new activity is required. Just add the number of participants of events planned anyhow. It really starts to look like a pure accounting exercise to inflate the numbers irrespective of the content.

But this is not the end of this story…

Continue reading “WOD = WOW – a Stroke of Genius”