Privacy

Using your personal information:

Here at St Matthias we take your privacy seriously and we will only use your personal information to carry out the duties and functions of the church and to provide the services you have requested from us, in accordance with GDPR. We will not share your data with anyone outside of the church without permission unless legally required to do so.

Join the Adventure cards (JTA’s)

A key source of information is our JTA’s, which are widely distributed around church at every service. People are encouraged to fill this in as the primary method of giving us their personal information so that we can contact them both about general church activities and areas more specific to their own interests. Information from the JTA’s is input to ChurchSuite, a specialised church database whose policies we have reviewed and which we believe takes GDPR and your privacy seriously. The data they store on our behalf is subject to their privacy policy www.churchsuite.com/privacy-policy. The ways we may use your data are clearly set out on the JTA’s where we seek consent for such usage. If you have consented to it, your email address will be used to send you the St Matts newsletter. You can opt out of this either by unsubscribing on the bottom of a newsletter email or by contacting us (see details below). The JTA cards are stored securely.

Small Group sign-up

Another way your personal information may be received is through you signing up to a small group via our website. We consider it in our legitimate interest to hold and process your personal information for running, and keeping you informed about, the small group you have signed up for. This might be the first time you have submitted personal information to St Matthias and therefore, if you have consented to it, your email address will be used to send you the St Matts weekly e-newsletter. You can opt out of this either by unsubscribing on the bottom of a newsletter email or by contacting us (see details below).

We run some geographically-based small groups as well as a range of age-specific small groups and events. If you provide us with your home address and date of birth we will use this information to tell you about those small groups and events that might be of interest to you.

Social Media

Our teams and small groups may use Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media to keep in touch. You have the choice as to whether you wish to join these groups and if you do choose to sign up your information will be held by the social media provider in question and you should refer to their Privacy Policies as necessary.

The weekly St Matts e-newsletter

If you have requested it you will receive our weekly newsletter. This is sent via MailChimp whose privacy policy can be found at www.mailchimp.com/legal/privacy. You can unsubscribe to it by clicking a link at the bottom of each email, or by contacting us as detailed below.

Legitimate Interest

The following activities are considered to be within our legitimate interest to perform in the running of St Matthias church.

Your  personal information may be shared with the staff team and lay leaders to enable you to be contacted regarding church activities and events eg small groups, teams and other church gatherings in which you have shown an interest.

We may use information, eg contact phone numbers, medical or special needs details, for the safety of children in our care.

If you give us a reference regarding a potential future staff or team member then we may store and process the personal data you give us in order to follow up the reference as necessary. Once a decision has been made regarding the individual then all your personal  information will be deleted.

From time to time it may be appropriate for our various departments eg church leadership, worship leadership, children’s pastors etc to communicate with people in the same line of work in order to share information, promote relevant events, arrange meetings etc.

Children

UK GDPR legislation requires that we have parent/guardian consent to use data we hold on children under 13. Once a child reaches 13 we will ask for the child’s own consent. Whilst this privacy policy also applies to children we also have a separate privacy policy statement which simplifies the language and focuses on areas that they might find more relevant eg the right to be forgotten.

Giving Information

Our Giving envelopes are a primary source of funding for the church. Once processed they are stored securely. Financial information relating to Giving and Gift Aid may be shared with HMRC in order to reclaim tax and may be stored for 6 years in accordance with their requirements. We are legally required to keep this data.

When credit/debit card details are given in order to make a payment they are destroyed as soon as the payment is processed. Our payment processors Stripe (one off card payments) and GoCardless (Direct Debits) have their own privacy policies available on their web sites.

References

If you provide us with personal information in relation to us obtaining a reference either from you or about you then, as you might expect, we may use this information to contact you regarding this. If you provide us with a reference about someone we may hold this information whilst we process their application and whilst they are working for us. We will however delete all such information if the applicant is not offered a position or after they have ceased working for St Matthias.

Right to be forgotten

You have a right at any time to stop us from contacting you. If you no longer wish us to hold your personal data then please contact us using the details below. We will then delete all the data that we hold about you except for that which we are legally required to hold.

Right to complain

You have the right to complain to the ICO if you think there is a problem with the way we deal with your personal data. www.ico.org.uk.

Access to your information and correction:

You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. If you would like a copy of some or all of your personal information, please email or write to us using the contact information below. We will make no charge for any initial request but may make a reasonable charge for additional requests within a 24 month period.

We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. You may ask us to correct or remove information you think is inaccurate.

Cookies:

Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log information and visitor behaviour information. This information is used to track visitor use of the website and to compile statistical reports on website activity. For further information visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org. You can set your browser not to accept cookies and the above websites tell you how to remove cookies from your browser. However in a few cases some of our website features may not function as a result.

Other websites:

Our website contains links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to this website so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy policies.

Changes to our privacy policy:

We keep our privacy policy under regular review and we will place any updates on this web page. This privacy policy was last updated on Friday 25 May 2018.

How to contact us:

Please contact us if you have any questions about our privacy policy or information we hold about you at info@stmplymouth.org.uk. Alternatively you can write to us at St Matthias Church, North Hill, Plymouth PL4 8HF.