Privacy Statement
Grace Church Privacy Notice
How Grace Church (“we”) use your information
Your privacy is important to us. We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of your information.
Why do we collect and use your information?
We collect and use your information for the following purposes:
- To enable communication (On the legal basis of Consent)
- To respond to specific one-off requests for information about the church and the services and ministries we offer to our communities.
- To contact you to send you our regular emails and other communications regarding our church activities if you have specifically requested to join one or more of our mailing lists.
Where we would like to send you information about our events and activities by post, telephone, email and/or text messaging services In such cases we will ask for your explicit permission to do so for each applicable communication medium.
- Post
- Phone
- Text Message (including instant messaging)
- As a church member, to hold your information within a members’ directory which will be shared with other Church members (members being those whom have made a specific ongoing commitment to the church and have been recognised by the eldership team as a member of Grace Church)
Please note: Where we rely on your consent to process personal data you may withdraw consent at any time and for any reason of your choosing, by contacting the church office either verbally or in writing.
- To enable the Church to operate on a day to day basis (On the legal basis of Legitimate Interest):
- To fulfil our purposes as a church and charitable organisation, including donation processing.
- To manage membership requests and records.
- To manage our accounts and records (including the processing of gift-aid applications).
- Where an individual uses a publicly accessible service operated by the church (for example, a toddler group, an Alpha course, or other public ministry).
- To provide appropriate pastoral care from within Grace Church (for example, when asking the church for prayer, ministry or practical support your information may be shared with appropriate church staff and members).
- To undertake a specific ceremony or service including but not limited to: weddings, marriage blessings, infant/child dedications, funerals or memorial services.
- To comply with the Church’s child and vulnerable person safeguarding policy.
- To monitor and assess the quality of our services.
- To manage our employees and volunteers.
- To comply with the law regarding data sharing (On the legal basis of Legal Obligation)
- Where required to gather or share information on the basis of a statutory obligation, for example, claiming gift-aid.
How do we collect your information?
We will only collect information directly from yourself or, if you are under the age of 18, we may collect it from your parent or legal guardian.
Sharing your information
Your data is processed only by Grace Church and we do not share your information with others except as described in this notice.
The categories of information that we may collect, hold and share include:
- Personal information (such as name, telephone number, address and email address, appropriate family members)
- Characteristics (such as gender, ethnicity, language, nationality, religious beliefs, country of birth)
Where necessary, and only with your explicit consent, we may also require further personal information to help us to provide you with ministry and support.
Storing your data
We hold your data for varying lengths of time depending on the type of information in question but in doing so we always comply with Data Protection legislation. We will contact you annually to check that the information we are holding is accurate and that you agree to us holding it.
Your data will be held on storage medium appropriate to its purpose and processing. All personal data will be appropriately secured to ensure privacy is maintained and data loss risks are minimised.
If you would like information about our data security measures and/or retention timescales, please contact the Church Office.
Requesting access to your personal data
Under Data Protection legislation, you have the right to request access to information about you that we hold. To make a request for your personal information contact the Church Operations Manager.
You also have the right to:
- object to processing of personal data that is likely to cause, or is causing, damage or distress
- prevent processing for the purpose of direct marketing
- object to decisions being taken by automated means
- in certain circumstances, have inaccurate personal data rectified, blocked, erased or destroyed; and
- claim compensation for damages caused by a breach of the Data Protection regulations.
For further information on how your information is used, how we maintain the security of your information and your rights to access information we hold on you please contact our Operations Manager.
If you have a concern about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, you should raise your concern with us in the first instance or directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/
Contact:
If you would like to discuss anything in this privacy notice, please contact our Operations Manager on 01243 778500 or info@wearegrace.uk