Q&A on Shincheonji Church of Jesus Regarding the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)-2

Q&A on Shincheonji Church of Jesus

Regarding the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)-2

□ About submitting the list

Officials from the KCDC (Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and Gyeonggi-do government visited the headquarters office of Shincheonji Church on 25 February, and IT experts themselves retrieved data directly from the server. They also checked the search queries. The KCDC downloaded the data of 212,324 congregation members in Korea into two files, one file for students and children (16,680) and one file for the rest (195,644), which they stored on a USB thumb drive. On 26 February, the list of the congregation overseas was provided in the same method.

The Gyeonggi-do government acquired this information: 

1) a list of the church members who have their address in Gyeonggi-do, 

2) church members who were at Daegu Church either on the 9th or 16th of February,

3) church members who were at Gwacheon Church on 16 February.

And on 27 February, Gyeonggi-do obtained additional data on 1,074 people with missing contact information from the initial list of 33,582.

Most of those 1,074 were students and children, and the church provided the contact information of their parents and family members. Gyeonggi-do government officials also brought IT personnel to extracted data from the church server and checked search queries.

When the KCDC send the list to respective local governments, they sort the list by address. However, Shincheonji Church of Jesus categorizes congregation member data by church and tribe rather than the place of residence. Inevitably, when a local government requests a roster of the congregation to a Shincheonji Church in their area, it would not perfectly match the list sent from the KCDC.

Also, there are cases where a person's address information in the church records would be different from the current address. Later, to resolve complications, the headquarters resubmitted a full list with additional details, including attending church, tribe, and member group.

Per the request of the KCDC, the headquarters provided a list of students on 27 February. For students without contact number and address, the name and contact information of the evangelists assigned to those students were attached to the student information. Meanwhile, congregation member data from Gwangju Church and the Daegu and Gyeongsangbuk-do region was provided in realtime upon request of respective local governments. 

On 5 March, after allegations that the data previously provided by the church had omissions and discrepancies, officials from the center in charge of infectious disease response at the KCDC joined by forensic analysis experts from the Supreme Prosecutor's Office visited the church headquarters office for an administrative investigation.

The administrative investigation was to verify data and whether it matched the submitted lists, and the officials acquired the full list of congregation members of Shincheonji Church of Jesus, all students, church properties including church buildings and annexes, the list of all people who have attended service during January and February, and student attendance records of mission centers.

Controlling and preventing infectious diseases is a serious matter which is directly related to the health of people and may cause social anxiety from concerns of infection. The church is assisting in thorough investigation and diagnosis following the instructions of the health department. Also, church members are vigilantly following the process of admission, treatment, or self-quarantine, depending on the results of testing and epidemiological investigations, in hopes of minimizing the possibility of community-acquired infection.

※ Updates will keep coming. The flood of inquiry calls is hampering church administrative work at this time. We ask journalists to kindly send their inquiries via text message. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.