Our Privacy Policy

We collect personal information directly from you when you:

— Complete a Pastoral Care card, such as the ‘Welcome to Kerith’ card for newcomers or ‘Response’ card requesting follow-up after a meeting.

— Register your children or young people to access a Kerith Kids or Kerith Youth session or event.

— Sign up for and attend an event, small group or course.

— Complete a Giving Instruction (including Gift Aid).

— Sign up to be a volunteer.

— Apply for a role on the staff team.

— Register with one of our support ministries, such as CAP and Foodbank.

— Sign-up for our newsletter or blogs.

— Join or update your information in ‘MyKerith’, our online community tool.

— Submit a query via our contact forms on our website or via email.

We also store non-personally identifiable information when you visit our website, through the use of cookies.

The personal information we hold varies greatly depending on what information you have submitted. For example, it may be as little as just your email address, or as much as given in a detailed application form or Gift-Aided donation. This could include:

— Names, titles and aliases.

— Contact details such as telephone numbers, postal address and email addresses.

— Photographs and videos.

— Demographic information such as gender, age, date of birth, marital status, nationality, education/work histories, academic/professional qualifications, hobbies, family composition, and dependents.

— Financial information such as your bank details, payment card numbers.

— Whether you are a UK tax payer.

The General Data Protection Regulation recognises some information as 'sensitive personal data'. The information we process is likely to constitute 'sensitive personal data' because, as a church, the fact that we process your information at all may be suggestive of your religious beliefs. Where you provide this information, we may also process other categories of sensitive personal data: racial or ethnic origin, sex life, mental and physical health, details of injuries, medication/treatment received, data concerning sexual orientation, children's data and criminal records, fines and other similar judicial records.

We highly value the personal information you share with us. We will keep your information up to date, store or destroy it securely, protect it from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure and we will ensure that appropriate technical measures are in place to protect it. We will not collect or retain excessive amounts of data and we will not use it for marketing purposes, unless you are specifically signing up for our newsletter.

We use your personal information for some or all of the following purposes:

— To enable us to meet all our legal and statutory obligations.

— To carry out comprehensive safeguarding procedures (including due diligence and complaints handling) in accordance with best safeguarding practice with the aim of ensuring that all children and adults at risk are provided with safe environments.

— To provide pastoral and spiritual care and to perform services such as weddings and funerals.

— To connect you with the church community, including via access to “MyKerith”, our online community tool.

— To deliver the church's mission to our community and carry out any other voluntary or charitable activities for the benefit of the wider community.

— To run Sunday and mid-week meetings, groups, courses and events.

— To maintain the church's accounts and records.

— To process a donation that you have made (including contacting you regarding Gift Aid information).

— To seek your views or comments.

— To notify you of changes to our meetings, events and role holders.

— To send you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you.

— To process a grant or application for a role.

— To manage our employees and volunteers.

— To operate the Kerith Community Church web site and deliver the services that individuals have requested.

— Our processing also includes the use of CCTV systems for the prevention and prosecution of crime.

— To determine and invite you to the appropriate next step from our 'Growth Track' or 'Life Skills' series of courses.

— To contact you about any children or young people in your care and their involvement in Kerith Kids or Kerith Youth.

Most of our data is processed because it is necessary for our legitimate interests, or the legitimate interests of a third party (such as the Local Authority). An example of this would be our safeguarding work to protect children and adults at risk. We will always take into account your interests, rights and freedoms. As a religious organisation we are permitted to process information about your religious beliefs in the course of our legitimate activities, for example in administering contact details. Your explicit consent will be sought when you sign up for the newsletter so that we can keep you informed about news, events, activities and services. Your consent will also be sought when we want to use your image online or in print. Some of our processing is necessary for carrying out legal obligations in relation to Gift Aid or under employment, social security or social protection law. We may also process data if it is necessary for the performance of a contract with you, or to take steps to enter into a contract. An example of this would be processing your information in connection with the hire of church facilities. In the course of our safeguarding work we may, on occasion, process criminal offence data.

Your personal information will be treated as strictly confidential. It will only be shared with third parties where it is necessary for the performance of our tasks or where you first give us your prior consent. We may need to share your information with some or all of the following: Statutory organisations such as the police, the local authority and the health service Our agents and contractors. For example, we may ask a commercial provider to send out newsletters on our behalf, or to maintain our database software.

We will endeavour to keep your information for only as long as we need it. This means that we may delete it when it is no longer necessary. We will keep some records for an extended period of time if we are legally required to do so. For example we will keep gift aid declarations and associated paperwork for up to 6 years after the calendar year to which they relate.

By default, we invite those accessing the Kerith Community for pastoral care, groups and serving teams to access the data we hold for you via our “My Kerith” online community tool. Data here can be self-managed for privacy purposes.

In addition, you have the following rights with respect to your personal Information:

When exercising any of the rights listed below, in order to process your request, we may need to verify your identity for your security. In such cases we will need you to respond with proof of your identity before you can exercise these rights.

— The right to access information we hold on you.

— At any point you can contact us to request the information we hold on you as well as why we have that information, who has access to the information and where we obtained the information from. Once we have received your request we will respond within a month.

— The right to correct and update the information we hold on you.

If the information we hold on you is out of date, incomplete or incorrect, you can inform us and your information will be updated.

There are no fees or charges for the first request but additional requests for the same data may be subject to an administrative fee.

— The right to have your information erased.

If you feel that we should no longer be using your data or that we are illegally using your data, you can request that we erase the information we hold.

When we receive your request we will confirm whether the information has been deleted or the reason why it cannot be deleted (for example because we need it for our legitimate interests or regulatory purpose(s)).

— The right to object to processing of your data.

You have the right to request that we stop processing your data. Upon receiving the request we will contact you and let you know if we are able to comply or if we have legitimate ground to continue to process your data. Even after you exercise your right to object, we may continue to hold your information to comply with your other rights or defend legal claims.

— The right to data portability.

You have the right to request that we transfer some of your information to another controller. We will comply with your request, where it is feasible to do so, within one month of receiving your request.

— The right to withdraw your consent to the processing at any time for any processing of data to which consent was sought.

You can withdraw your consent easily by telephone, email, or by post (see Contact details below).

— The right to object to the processing of personal data where applicable.

— The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (see Contact details below).

Any electronic personal information transferred to countries or territories outside the EU will only be placed on systems complying with measures giving equivalent protection of personal rights either through international agreements or contracts approved by the European Union. Our website is also accessible from overseas so on occasion some personal data may be accessed from overseas.

If we wish to use your personal information for a new purpose, not covered by this policy, then we will provide you with a new privacy notice explaining this new use prior to commencing the processing and setting out the relevant purposes and processing conditions. Where and whenever necessary, we will seek your prior consent to the new processing.

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.

We keep our privacy policy under regular review and the latest version is always available from our web site (in the footer area of each page) or from contacting us at the email or address below.

Please contact us if you have any questions about our privacy policy or information we hold about you:

Kerith Community Church, The Kerith Centre, Church Road, Bracknell, RG12 1EH
Email: info@kerith.church
Tel: 01344 862699

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Email: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email/
Tel: 0303 123 1113