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 Controller’s possession or likely to come into such possession. The processing of personal data is governed by the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 and by any act of Parliament or secondary legislation based up on it.
2. Who are we?
The Parochial Church Council of Emmanuel Church, Stoughton (the Church) is the Data Controller. This means it decides how your personal data is processed and for what purposes.
3. How do we process your personal data?
The Data Controller complies with its obligations under the DPA 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 enable us to provide voluntary services for your benefit and for the benefit of the public in our parish and Christian purposes in the wider world.
- To administer membership records.
- To manage our employees and volunteers.
- To maintain our own accounts and records (including the processing of Gift Aid applications).
- To inform you of news, events, activities and services running at the Church or elsewhere.
- To invite you to join in serving the Church and parish.
- For other purposes connected to the work of the Church.
4. What is the legal basis for processing your personal data?
Any one of the following bases:-
- Your explicit consent to hold information about you for the purposes given above.
- Where processing is necessary for carrying out obligations under employment, social security or social protection law, or as otherwise required by law.
- Where processing is carried out by the Church as a non-for-profit body with a religious aim, provided that
- That processing relates only to members or former members of the Church or those who have regular contact with it in connection with the purposes given above.
- There is no disclosure to a third party without consent.
- Where the legitimate interests of the Church are best served by processing your data. The Church has a duty under this legal basis to protect your rights, to consider the purpose for which it needs to process your data, whether it is necessary or helpful to do so without obtaining your consent and the balance between the benefit to the Church and the benefit or detriment to you. This will be considered on a case by case basis because everyone is different. It will be most carefully considered in respect of children and young people’s data especially.
5. Sharing your personal data.
Your personal data will be treated as confidential and will only be shared with other members of the Church in order to carry out a service to you or to other Church members or for purposes connected with the Church. We will only share your data with third parties outside Emmanuel with your consent unless we are required by law to disclose it. Note that:-
- Rotas are displayed in Church where they are available to anyone visiting the building;
- Parish registers are a matter of public record and can be inspected.
6. How long do we keep your personal data?
We keep data only for as long as is necessary for good housekeeping but normally for no longer than a year after:-
- the event or period for which the data was obtained, or
- the reason for obtaining the data ceases to apply.
It must be understood that lists of group members or rotas may be distributed (typically by email) to all participants and to other interested parties and deletion of these once out of date is outside the control of the Church.
Some data has to be kept for long periods, for instance:-
- Gift Aid declarations and associated paper work – for seven years after the tax year to which they relate;
- The Electoral Roll and Parish registers are kept permanently
7. Your rights and your personal data
Unless subject to an exemption under the DPA, you have the following rights with respect to your personal data:-
- To request a copy of the personal data which the Church holds about you
- To request that the Church corrects any personal data if found to be inaccurate or out of date
- To request your personal data is erased where it is no longer necessary for the Church to retain it
- To withdraw your consent to the processing of your personal data at any time
- To request that the Data Controller provide you with your personal data and where possible to transmit that data direct to another Data Controller (known as the “Right to Data Portability”). This does not apply where your data is processed for the legitimate interests of the Church.
- Where there is a dispute in relation to the accuracy or processing of your personal data to request a restriction is placed on further processing
- To object to the processing of personal data (where applicable)
- To lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s office
8. Further processing
If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose not listed above, either:-
- We will seek your prior consent to the new processing and provide you with a notice explaining this new use prior to commencing processing and setting out the relevant purposes and processing conditions, or
- If obtaining consent is not practical or reasonable, we will rely on the legitimate purposes of the Church using the guidelines and criteria from the ICO website (ico.org.uk).
9. Contact details
To exercise all rights, and to raise queries or complaints please in the first instance contact the person in the Church to whom you originally gave your information, or if that is not possible please contact the Church office (01483 561603). The office personnel will pass on your message but will not themselves be responsible for responding to your request.