Data Protection & Privacy Statement

Park Road Baptist Church,

Peterborough

Background 

Your privacy is important to us at Park Road Baptist Church, Peterborough (PRBC).   This statement sets out the type of information that you may provide to the church, and that we may then retain.   Official information is as follows:

• We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
• Under Data Protection legislation the church Charity Trustees of Park Road Baptist Church, Peterborough are the Data Controller. 
• Hugh Brenton, one of the trustees is our Data protection trustee.  Data Protection legislation allows us to process information that we regard as being in the church’s legitimate interest.   We consider that all personal information held by us falls within this definition.
• This document has been prepared in conjunction with our full data protection policy (of which a copy is available on request) based on guidance issued by the Baptist Union.
• Requests for further information should be addressed via the church office on 01733 347709 or emailing office@parkroad.org.uk

Information that we may collect from you

We may collect and process the following information about you:

• Your contact details.   These will be used to inform you about and organise activities of the church, and will be included in a church directory which is circulated to others who are in the directory.
• Details of money that you give to the church, which may include your bank details where you contribute via standing order or direct bank transfer.   This is held for the purpose of maintaining proper accounts and claiming gift aid, where appropriate, from HMRC;
• Information provided in connection with compliance with our safeguarding policy;
• Information that you share with us for the purposes of pastoral care, encouragement, training and prayer.   This information may be shared with other members of the church congregation to pray for you, along with other members and to provide appropriate pastoral care and support to you;
• Some information provided to us may be regarded as sensitive, but enables us to provide adequate pastoral support to you and your family. This information may be recorded by a minister, member of the leadership team, member of the fellowship team, but will NOT be disclosed to anyone else without your consent.

It is important to note that any personal information provided about children below the age of 16, for example health details that are relevant to children’s activities, will only be held with the specific consent of one of their parents / guardian. 

Sharing of information outside of PRBC

We will not sell your data to third parties.  We may however occasionally share your information with others outside the church including:

• Where we are approached for a reference by another church or organisation.
• In respect of employees, for the purposes of managing and processing our payroll and pension contributions (currently managed by an external payroll bureau).
• Financial records including donor details, volunteers who have expenses reimbursed or other suppliers of services to the church, which may need to be disclosed to HMRC.

How we will store information

Electronic data will be held on the church computer, which includes standard security procedures, designed to prevent unauthorised access.  Some information will be held on paper, and where we consider it to be of a particularly sensitive nature, this will be held in a locked filing cabinet.

Due to the nature of the church’s activities and reliance on members and volunteers for the running of those activities, inevitably personal data may be held on personal computers through email communications and by leaders of organisations.   We will regularly remind those who may hold such data to be mindful of the requirements of this policy and to respect the privacy of individuals.   Whilst we are not able to enforce members of the church congregation following specific rules, we strongly recommend the following practical guidelines:

• Password protecting documents which contain sensitive personal information;
• Being careful that you send emails containing personal information to only the right person;
• Use BCC (‘blind copy’) when sending emails to a group of unconnected people;
• Be sensitive when using church-related photos or other personal data within your personal social media (in particular, names or photos that include pictures of children, should not be shared in this way unless you have the specific permission of a parent / guardian of that child);
• Do not share sensitive personal information (even ‘for prayer’) without consent;
• If you have church-related personal information on any computer or similar device, make sure the equipment, and any back up of that data, is password protected.
• That any cloud-based storage of data follows the EEA note below.

Whilst we do not believe this is relevant at the current time, we may use cloud-based software in the future where data is held outside of the UK.  If this happens then only software that is well-known or used widely in the church community will be used where the expectation is that their procedures in respect of data privacy will be of a high quality.

Retention of records

Some records are held to provide a historical record of the church.  It is possible that some of these records, for example minutes of meetings and church magazines etc. may include personal information.   We will seek to ensure that any personal information in any new such documents that are produced is very limited, for example just the name of the individual.

Otherwise, we will store your information for no longer than reasonably necessary, usually for the time that you are attending the church or are a member of the church.  After this we will continue to hold your contact details in order to keep you informed about the ministry of the church, unless you request otherwise.   We also retain some details that may be provided to family members in the event of a funeral.

Your Rights

You have the right to ask to see any information we hold about you (including the pastoral support information) by submitting a ‘Subject Access Request’ to the Data Protection trustee. You also have the right to ask for information which you believe to be incorrect to be rectified.

If you are concerned about the way your information is being handled please speak to our Data Protection Trustee. If you are still unhappy you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioners Office.

Approved by the Trustees: 13 April 2021