said party

[Michelle Green]

Hi all,
Could you help me with this question?
Bellow is taken from an email privacy notice. Is the red part understandable and natural in this sentence? Does "said party" refer to "the interested party" in blue?

The personal data derived from correspondence (including contact data) provided by the interested party are processed by the church in order to manage the communications between the church and said party within the scope of its activity.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Uncle Jack]

Does "said party" refer to "the interested party" in blue?

Yes. There is no need to use such confusing terminology, but people do because they think it sounds more formal or legal. In reality, it is neither.

 

[Michelle Green]

Yes. There is no need to use such confusing terminology, but people do because they think it sounds more formal or legal. In reality, it is neither.

Hi Uncle, thank you for your reply. Since "said party" is neither formal nor legal in the sentence, how should I change it so that it is natural and not odd?

 

[Uncle Jack]

The problems begin before this passage, since "the interested party" presumably refers to something already mentioned. You could avoid the archaic use of "said" by simply repeating "the interested party", but this is not much of an improvement.

 

[Keith Bradford]

Several points arise:

• The word "party" is misused here. A party is one participant in a lagal contract - it may be an individual, a couple, a group, a limited company... But here, it's clear that (a) we are not talking about a contract and (b) we are talking about an individual person. So replace party by person.
• "Interested" is also misused. Many people may be interested, but only one person is involved.
• "Said" (especially without an article) is very old-fashioned and can almost always be replaced by this or that.
• "Within the scope of its activity" seems pretty meaningless. How could a church possibly operate outside the scope of its activity?

So we would finally have:

The personal data derived from correspondence (including contact data) provided by the person involved are processed by the church in order to manage the communications between the church and that person.