Ebenezer Church Privacy Policy
Who we are
Your personal information will be held by Ebenezer Church (We, us, our).
The law in the UK requires us to manage personal information in accordance with data protection principles. This notice tells you what personal information we collect, how we use it, the legal bases under which we may process it; who we may share it with, steps we take to protect and secure it, your rights under data protection law and finally, how you can contact us with questions or concerns.
We are committed to the privacy of the personal information that is entrusted to us and we want to ensure you can exercise your privacy rights.
What personal information we may hold about you
We use a wide range of personal information about you that we have put into the following categories.
Contact - Information we can use to make contact with you and where you live.
Transactional - Information relating to payments, credit and debit payments.
Consents - Information relating to permissions, consents and contact preferences.
Disclosure & Baring Service (DBS) Checks - Information relating to checks completed on individuals within the church who work with children and vulnerable adults.
Courses and Events - Information relating to your attendance at conferences, courses or special events you have attended.
Giving / Gift Aid - Information relating to the money you give to church and where relevant our engagement with the HMRC to claim back tax via the gift aid process.
Employment, Interns and Volunteers - Information relating to job applications, staff, intern and volunteer records.
Building Hire - Information relating to the private hire of our building.
Where we collect personal information from
We may collect personal information about you from the following sources:
• In forms you complete, from emails and letters you send us, when registering for courses and special events and when using our websites.
• The Disclosure & Baring Service (DBS) when you ask to work with children or vulnerable adults.
What we use your personal information for
We will use your personal information for the following purposes:
• Managing our relationship with you, including administering membership records;
• Responding to your enquiries and complaints;
• Running the church in an effective way, including managing finance, maintaining accounts and records, business capability, planning, charity governance and audits;
• Providing you with services and notifying you about either important changes or developments to the features and operation of those services;
• Updating, consolidating, and improving the accuracy of our records;
• Informing you of news, events, activities and associated ministries;
• Ensuring we comply with the law for example when managing the pandemic track and trace system, responding to court orders, or legal processes, to establish or exercise our legal rights or, defend against legal claims;
• To investigate, prevent or detect crime or illegal activities and situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person;
• HM Revenue & Customs or other authorities require it; and
• Testing new systems and checking upgrades to existing systems.
Recipients of personal information
When we use your personal information in the ways described above, we may need to share it with other organisations outside our church, as detailed below:
• HM Revenue & Customs or other lawful authorities;
• Our agents, service providers, contractors and others involved in running church events and activities;
• Banks, debit/credit card providers any other payment system providers such as Stripe or PayPal when managing payments or refunds.
We will never sell your personal information to third parties.
OUR LEGAL BASIS FOR PROCESSING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
We must have a lawful basis for processing your information; this will vary according to the circumstances of how and why we have your information but typical examples include:
· the activities are within our legitimate interests in operating church and advancing the Christian faith, in providing information about the activities of the church, and to raise charitable funds;
· you have given consent (which can be withdrawn at any time by contacting us by any convenient means) for us to process your information (e.g. to send you newsletters or similar communications by email or SMS);
· we are carrying out necessary steps in relation to a contract to which you are party or prior to you entering into a contract (e.g. where you enter into a hire agreement for the church hall or purchase tickets for an event);
· the Processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation (e.g. where we pass on information to a local authority for safeguarding or other reasons);
· the Processing is necessary for carrying out a task in the public interest (e.g. updating and maintaining the register of marriages); or
· to protect your vital interests (e.g. if you were unfortunate enough to fall ill or suffer an injury on our premises, then we may pass on information to the NHS for treatment purposes and to family members).
If we Process any Special Categories of Personal Data we must have a further lawful basis for the processing. This may include:
· where you have given us your explicit consent to do so (e.g. to cater for your medical or dietary needs at an event);
· where the Processing is necessary to protect your vital interests or someone else’s vital interests (e.g. passing on information to the Police);
· you have made the information public;
· where the Processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims;
· where the Processing is necessary for carrying out in line with employment and social security obligations; or
· the processing being necessary for reasons of substantial public interest (e.g. where steps are taken to prevent fraud or other dishonest activity).
Using your personal information to keep in contact with you
Ebenezer Church will use your personal information to keep in touch with you, for example providing updates on church life including news about special events, services, courses, highlighting ways you can engage in church life and general information which we believe will be of interest to you.
We will not contact you if you have asked us not to.
You can ask us to stop sending you communications or change your contact preferences at any time by contacting us, using any convenient means.
We will not provide information about you to organisations outside of Ebenezer Church unless you have given us your explicit consent to do so or the law allows for particular disclosures to be made.
How long will we retain your personal information?
We will continue to hold your personal information for as long as you wish to maintain a relationship with us and/or for as long as the law allows. You also have the right to ask us to delete your personal information if you believe we no longer have a valid reason to continue holding it.
Confidentiality and security of personal information
The security of your personal information is of paramount importance to us and we use a range of technical and organisational security measures to safeguard it, including physical, electronic, and procedural controls. We regularly capture photographs, video and audio at church events and meetings, for publishing on our websites or social media to help publicise events or demonstrate church life. We do not normally process personal information when using such content, but nonetheless want to provide you with the opportunity to object if you would rather not have images of yourself used in this way. Please contact us, by any convenient means, with your preferences. We will ask for your explicit consent when displaying your name alongside any such content.
Cookies
When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example, computer or mobile phone. These are known as cookies; they often include an anonymous unique identifier that is sent to your browser from a web site's computers and stored on your computer's hard drive.
You can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is set.
However, if you reject all cookies, you may not be able to use our products or services that require you to "log in" and you may not be able to take full advantage of all our offerings.
These cookies are used to improve services for you, for example, by:
• enabling a service to recognise your device so you don't have to give the same information several times during one task;
• recognising that you may already have given a username and password so you don't need to do it for every web page requested;
• measuring how many people are using services, so they can be made easier to use and there's enough capacity to ensure they are fast;
• analysing anonymised data to help us understand how people interact with Ebenezer Church website so we can make it better.
We will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you.
However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by our websites, or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. The 'Help' function within your browser should tell you how.
Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers.
You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your machine as well as more general information about cookies.
Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of our website.
YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS
Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. You have the right to:
1. Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
2. Request that we correct any personal information if it is found to be inaccurate.
3. Request that your personal information is erased where we no longer have a valid basis to continue processing it.
4. Withdraw your consent to us processing your personal information.
5. Object to the processing of personal information in certain limited circumstances.
6. Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party.
7. Lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.
If you are a member of the church we are able to provide you with access to the My ChurchSuite platform, available in “app” form or within a browser. This will allow you to access your personal information and that of your children, keep it up to date and manage your privacy settings. To receive access to My ChurchSuite please email your request to info@ebe.org.uk and we will contact you with an invitation to set up your own secure account. To exercise any of your Rights please contact us by any convenient means.
CONTACTING US ABOUT PRIVACY CONCERNS
If you have a privacy concern regarding Ebenezer Church, or this Privacy and Cookie Policy, and if you cannot satisfactorily resolve it through the use of this website, you should contact us by any convenient means.
In some instances, honouring your requests (for example requesting that we erase your personal information) may preclude your ability to use our website or access other services.
You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.
DATA PROTECTION OFFICER
We have appointed a Data Protection Officer who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this policy. If you have any questions about this policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us using the details below:
The Data Protection Officer
Ebenezer Church
286 Filton Avenue
Horfield
Bristol BS7 0BA
Email - info@ebe.org.uk
CHANGES TO THE PRIVACY POLICY
If there is ever a change to how we use or intend to use your personal information, we will post that change to this policy and, where necessary, we will seek your consent to such new uses.
We keep our privacy policy under regular review. This policy was last updated on 27 July 2021.