April 06, 2021
We wrote to you on February 19, to advise you that a former employee had taken a copy of our newsletter subscriber data.
On February 22, the International Association of Atheists' President, Gail Miller, wrote, "IAA will agree to discuss with AAI the terms of arbitration." On the basis of this offer, AAI re-engaged with IAA to conclude an agreement. Unfortunately, within a few days IAA broke off negotiations.
It is extremely disappointing that IAA, despite admitting they took and used confidential data without our consent, refuse to take the simple steps necessary to put this right.
Under the circumstances, we have made a formal complaint to the Attorney General of California and we will now leave the police to investigate the theft and misuse of private data.
We can be sure that no account passwords or credit card information has been taken—we do not hold credit card information on our systems and passwords are securely encrypted. We believe the data taken is subscribers' usernames and email addresses. IAA have assured us privately that they are no longer using the stolen email addresses and have not passed it to any third party, however they remain unwilling to formally certify this and that our data has been permanently deleted. This is why we have referred the theft for the police to investigate.
We are very sorry that this data breach occurred. Our data is well-protected but it was taken by an Executive Director who betrayed her position of trust whilst in our employment.
Please address any questions to vicepresident@atheistalliance.org.
