At Yeovil Community Church we are committed to ensuring that your personal information is protected and never misused.

Our privacy policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, how we use it, the control you have over your personal information and the procedures we have in place to protect your personal information. It applies to personal information we collect through our YCC websites and in person at our office location or events.

By sharing your personal information with us, and by continuing to use our websites and services, you confirm that you have read and understood the terms of this privacy policy. We take responsibility for the personal information we collect about you, and we aim to be transparent about how we handle it, and give you control over it.

In this privacy policy, when we refer to “YCC”, “Yeovil Community Church”, “us”, “we” or “our”, we mean the Yeovil Community Church Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) which provides you with the YCC websites and related services. Information on which Yeovil Community Church is primarily responsible for any personal information collected about you, [and the contact details for YCC’s privacy contact], are available in the Contacts at the end of this privacy policy.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about any aspect of this privacy policy or how Yeovil Community Church handles your information, please email our Privacy contact at privacy@yeovilcommunitychurch.co.uk.

Privacy policies can be complicated. We have tried to make ours as clear and as accessible as possible. To help, we have also summarised how we handle your personal information at Yeovil Community Church in our privacy principles below. These principles demonstrate our commitment to protecting your privacy and handling your personal information in the right way and as you would expect it to be handled.

At Yeovil Community Church we:

  1. Will only ask for or collect the personal information we need to provide and improve the services and experiences our members and visitors expect.
  2. Give you control over the personal information we hold about you to ensure it is accurate and reflects your preferences.
  3. Make sure your personal information is always secure and protected.
  4. Are fair and transparent about how we use the personal information we hold.
  5. Only ever use your personal information for the purpose that you trusted us to use it for.
  6. Will never sell your personal information and only share it as outlined in our privacy policy or when you ask us to.
  7. Respect your choices and will inform you if there are important changes that affect your personal information or how we use it.
  8. Take responsibility for the personal information that we hold about you.

We value the personal information entrusted to us and we respect that trust, by complying with all relevant laws, and adopting good practice. We process personal data to help us:

  1. Maintain our list of church members and visitors;
  2. Provide pastoral support for members and visitors and others connected with our church;
  3. Provide and promote our services to the community;
  4. Safeguard children, young people and adults at risk;
  5. Recruit, support and manage staff and volunteers;
  6. Maintain our accounts and records;
  7. Maintain the security of property and premises;
  8. Respond effectively to enquirers and handle any complaints.
  9. Comply with regulatory legislation and fulfill other church operational duties (e.g. distribution of the Grapevine).

We collect information when you contact us by email, telephone, letter, our website, social media, or in person. The personal data we collect and process can include information such as names, contact details, relevant health information, education or employment details, and visual images of people, depending on the reason for collecting the data. Some groups only require name, address, telephone numbers and email. Yeovil4Family, Prayer4Growth, Job Club, Children and Youth Groups, require more information in order to provide the appropriate service and ensure safety of those attending the group or ministry. Recruitment will require sufficient information from the applicants and previous employers, and the Disclosure and Barring Service to ensure appropriate and safe recruitment. Applications to hire the building will also require collection of different information.

Information from your online interactions

We collect and store limited personal information and some anonymous, aggregate statistics from all visitors to our websites and users of our apps, whether you actively provide us with that information or merely browse our websites or use our apps. The information we collect includes the internet protocol (IP) address of the device you are using, the browser software you use, your operating system, the date and time of access, the internet address of the website from which you link through to our website and information on how you use our websites or apps.

We use this information so that we can see how well our websites and apps are working, how they are used and what users look at most.

We also collect and handle information about how you engage with our promotional campaigns and advertising online, outside of our own websites (for example, on Google, YouTube and on social media).

That information is, predominantly, collected through our use of cookies and similar technologies.

Cookies

We use cookies on our websites and apps. “Cookies” are small text files that websites save onto your device via your web browser. They’ve been around since the mid-1990’s and are one of the most widely used technologies on the internet.

Some cookies that we use at YCC will collect personal information about you. Any personal information that is collected will be used in accordance with this privacy policy. By continuing to use our websites and apps, you accept that cookies will be set on your device. Please note that we do not currently respond to Do Not Track (DNT) signals.

Email Communications

As a user of our services, we will send you communications by e-mail. As long as you are happy for us to do so, we would also like to keep you posted on anything that’s happening at YCC which we think you might like to know about; whether it’s our latest service announcements or upcoming events, we want to make sure you’re happy with the communications you receive from us. You can find out how to update or change whether you would like to hear from us, or stop us contacting you, in the section below titled ‘How can you change the way that we contact you?’

We collect information about how you engage with our e-mails; including whether they are delivered to you, whether you open them, whether you choose to learn more about what’s happening at YCC (for example, by clicking on a link in our e-mail) and if you ask us not to contact you anymore (by clicking on the unsubscribe option included in all our e-mail correspondence).

We use that information by itself and in combination with your details (the information you share with us) to make sure that we stop sending you service or marketing communications when you ask us to. We also use it to make our e-mails as interesting as possible by providing you with content and experiences that we think you will be interested in based on how you have engaged with our previous e-mails; you have the right to object to our use of your information for this purpose.

Social Media

We love interacting with you on social media. You may use social media to contact us about your YCC experiences, or to let people know what you think about YCC or events that you have attended. We review publically available social media and online sites to get a better understanding of what people are saying about us and to assist members and visitors who prefer to contact us through social media.

The information we collect from social media and online sites, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat, sometimes includes personal information that has been put online and is publically available. We make sure any information we use is properly credited to its source or is made anonymous.

These online and social media sites typically have their own privacy policies explaining how they use and share your personal information. You should carefully review those privacy policies before you use these sites to make sure that you are happy with how your personal information is being collected and shared.

Information we collect at our venus and events

You may share personal information with us when you visit us in person at one of our venues or events; such as your name, contact details and payment information.

We will also collect personal information about you through our use of CCTV, filming and photography. CCTV cameras are primarily used for security purposes. We will film and take photographs at some of our events; we use film and photographs for our charity purposes (for example, to post on our social media pages). We will display notices at those of our venues and events where we use CCTV, or where we intend to film or take photographs, to let you know that we will collect personal information about you.

If you have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth enabled on your phone (or other device) when you visit us at our stores, stands and events, we will also collect limited personal information through your device.

Information we collect from third party data providers

We collect information, including aggregated demographic and lifestyle data that provide insights into the relative affluence of households within your neighbourhood, from third party data providers who help us to give you a more relevant owner experience by enabling us to provide offers at the right time, and to give you more relevant services and advice.

Information you provide will be stored either in paper form in a locked cabinet and / or electronically on secure platforms. Your information will only be accessed by those who need to access it. For example:

  1. Personnel Committee members can access recruitment information.
  2. Trustees and Line Managers can access relevant personnel and volunteer records.
  3. Group Leaders can access registration forms for their specific group / ministry.
  4. Trustees, Main Leaders, Admin can view the Church Members Directory, along with church members.

We have a Retention of Records Policy which identifies how long the information will be kept before it being destroyed / deleted.

Group Registration forms and sign in sheets will be retained until you are no longer attending the group. Most groups renew the registration forms annually to ensure the information is up to date and previous forms are shredded and the database deleted.

Our current Public Liability Insurance Policy requires us to keep some records for 50 years due to the possibility of a claim in future years. These include personnel records relating to any staff or volunteers that may have unsupervised contact with children or other vulnerable groups; any safeguarding records; as well as accident books and reports.

If you have any queries regarding specific data retention, please contact us at privacy@yeovilcommunitychurch.co.uk.

You have the right to:

  1. Request access to any of your personal information held by us (known as a Subject Access Request);
  2. Ask us to correct, remove or delete personal information about you;
  3. Ask us to limit or restrict use of your information;
  4. Ask us to provide your personal information to a third party provider of services.
  5. Withdraw consent when we are relying on consent to process your information.

Please note that these rights do not always apply and there are certain exceptions to them. We will also need to confirm identity before acting on certain requests.

We are committed to protecting your personal information. We use appropriate technical and organisational measures, including encryption, to protect your personal information and privacy and review those regularly. We protect your personal information using a combination of physical and IT security controls, including access controls that restrict and manage the way in which your personal information and data is processed, managed and handled. We also ensure that staff are adequately trained in protecting your personal information. Our procedures mean that we may occasionally request proof of identity before we share your personal information with you.

In the unlikely event that we do suffer a security breach which compromises our protection of your personal information and we need to let you know about it, we will do so.

We do not normally transfer data outside of the UK Sovereign boundary, but should we need to do so in the future we will comply with European data protection laws. Any transfer, storage and handling of personal data will continue to be handled in line with this Privacy Policy.

We will only send you marketing communications when you have told us that you are happy for us to do so.

You can change the way that we contact you in the following ways:

Opt-In/Start Contacting Me

If you hadn’t previously asked us to send you marketing communications, you can ask us to start contacting you (sometimes called an “opt-in”) by:

  • Contacting our privacy contact and stating that you would like to receive communications from us

Changing your preferences

If you have previously said that you would like us to contact you (“opted-in”) but would like to change or update the way that we do so, you can update your preferences by:

  • Contacting our privacy contact and stating that you would like to change or update the way that we contact you

Opt-Out/Stop Contacting Me

If you want to stop receiving marketing or support communications from us (sometimes called “opting out”), you can do so at any time by:

  1. Contacting our privacy contact stating that you no longer wish to receive such communications;
  2. Using the unsubscribe option included in all our e-mail correspondence (on all marketing and support communications)
  3. Emailing our privacy contact at privacy@yeovilcommunitychurch.co.uk
  • May 2018 – Launch of our new Privacy Policy to meet new GDPR legislative requirements