1. Your personal data – what is it?

Personal data relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data. Identification can be by the information alone or in conjunction with any other information in the data controllers possession or likely to come into such possession. The processing of personal data is governed by the General Data Protection Regulations (the GDPR).

2. Who are we?

The Welcome Church is the Data Controller (contact details below). This means it decides how your personal data is processed and for what purposes.

3. How do we process your personal data?

The Welcome Church complies with its obligations under the GDPR by keeping personal data up to date; by storing and destroying it securely; by not collecting or retaining excessive amounts of data; by protecting personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure and by ensuring that appropriate technical measures are in place to protect personal data.

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

  • To administer membership records and manage groups
  • To provide pastoral care to our congregation
  • To manage our employees, interns and volunteers
  • To maintain our accounts and records, including the processing of Gift Aid
  • To inform you of events, news, activities and services
  • To operate The Welcome Church website and Churchsuite Application, delivering services that individuals have requested
  • To exercise statutory, governmental or other public functions e.g. the registering of marriages

4. What is the legal basis for processing your personal data?

  • Explicit consent received from the data subject so that we can keep you informed about news, events, activities and services and to process your Gift Aid donations and keep you informed about Church events.
  • Processing is necessary for carrying out obligations under employment, social security or social protection issues. The processing only relates to members or former members or those who have regular contact with Welcome Church in connection with these purposes and,
  • There is no disclosure to a third party without consent.
  • Where processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest of in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller.

5. Sharing your personal data

Your personal data will be treated strictly confidential and will only be shared with other members of the church in order to carry out a service to other church members or for the purposes connected with the church. Unless we receive your consent, your information will never be passed to other organisations except where this is considered necessary for our own operations.

6. How long will we keep your personal data?

Personal data processed for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary. In practice we:

  • Review annually the data we hold
  • Consider the purpose or purposes we hold the information and decide how long to retain it
  • Securely delete information that is no longer needed for this or these purposes, and update, archive or securely delete information if it is out of date.
  • Specifically, we retain gift aid declarations and associated paperwork for up to 6 years after the calendar year to which they relate; safeguarding records and registers of marriages and funerals are kept permanently.

7. Your rights and your personal data

Unless subject to an exemption under GDPR, you have the following rights with respects to your personal data:

  • The right to request a copy of the personal data held about you by Welcome Church
  • The right to request any personal data be amended if you can show it to be incorrect and/or out of date
  • The right to request your personal data is erased when it is no longer necessary to retain such data, out with of any legal requirements (as section 6 above)
  • The right to withdraw your consent to the processing at any time
  • The right to data portability, if applicable, and consent obtained
  • The right, where there is dispute in relation to the accuracy or processing of your personal data, to request a restriction is placed on further processing
  • The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office, ICO.

8. Further Processing

If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this Data Protection Notice, then we will provide you with a new notice explaining this new use prior to commencing the processing conditions and where and whenever necessary we will seek your prior consent.

9. Contact Details

To exercise all relevant rights, queries or complaints in the first instance contact:
The Church Office, Tel: 01993 703210 or admin@thewelcomechurch.org.uk

You can contact the Information Commissioners Office via their website: www.ico.org.uk or via the telephone on 0303 123 1113.