Woodlands Group of Churches Privacy Policy

Who we are

Your personal information will be held by Woodlands Group of Churches (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, 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.

  • Course and Event Management - 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.

Where we collect personal information from

We may collect personal information about you from the following sources:

  • In application forms you complete, from emails and letters you send us, when registering for events, 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 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 group of churches, 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 and other debit/credit card providers when managing payments or refunds.

We will never sell your personal information to third parties.

Using your personal information to keep in contact with you

Woodlands Group of Churches 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 Woodlands Group of Churches unless you have given us your explicit consent to do so.

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.  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 wide range of technical and organisational security measures to safeguard it, including physical, electronic, and procedural controls.

From time to time we may publish photographs or video, captured at church events and meetings, 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 use the contact page link on this site, email or write to us at our registered address to object.  We will ask for your explicit consent when displaying your name alongside any such content.

Obtaining a copy of your personal information

You have the right of access copies of the personal information we hold about you by writing to us at:

DSAR Request
Woodlands Group of Churches
Woodlands Christian Centre
Belgrave Road
Clifton
Bristol
BS8 2AA

If any personal information is inaccurate or incorrect, please let us know and we will correct it.

Other important rights

You have the following additional rights:

  1. The right to request that we correct any personal information if it is found to be inaccurate.

  2. The right to request that your personal information is erased where we no longer have a valid basis to continue processing it.

  3. The right to withdraw your consent to us processing your personal information.

  4. The right to object to the processing of personal information in certain limited circumstances.

  5. The right to 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 simply email your request to data@woodlandschurch.net 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 using the contact page link on this website, email or by writing to us at our registered address.

Contacting us about privacy concerns

If you have a privacy concern regarding Woodlands Group of Churches, or this Privacy Policy, and if you cannot satisfactorily resolve it through the use of this website, you should contact us using the contact page link, email or by writing to us at our registered address.

In some instances, honoring your requests (for example requesting that we erase your personal information) may preclude your ability to use our website or access other services.

You can also contact the Information Commissioner’s Office on 0303 123 1113, via email (see https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email/) or in writing at The Information Commissioners Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF.

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 16th May 2018.

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 Woodlands Group of Churches 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.

If you wish to view your cookie code, just click on a cookie to open it. You'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your 'identification card', which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie.

For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual.

To opt-out of third-parties collecting any data regarding your interaction on our website, please refer to their websites for further information.

Contacting Woodlands Group of Churches 

If you have a privacy concern regarding Woodlands Group of Churches, or this policy, and if you cannot satisfactorily resolve it through the use of this website, you should contact us using the Email Us page.

In the event that we are still unable to resolve your concerns you may write to us at our registered address and we will take reasonable steps to accommodate your requests. In some instances, honouring your requests may preclude your ability to use our website or may require us to terminate our relationship with you.

 

Woodlands Church Belgrave Road, Bristol BS8 2AA