The law only allows us to use your personal information in certain limited circumstances, set out below.
The GDPR specifically states that a church may use legitimate interests to process personal information relating to its members to administer their membership of the church. We consider this the most appropriate condition for us to administer your membership, as you would reasonably expect us to process your personal information in order to provide you with membership and so you can take full advantage of our services. We have put safeguards in place to ensure your personal information is protected and your fundamental rights and freedoms are not overridden. Examples: setting up your iKnow Church account; keeping a record of your attendance at church, bible classes and other events and meetings; providing pastoral care and other support you have requested; organising volunteers and rotas; administering the Services (troubleshooting, data analysis, research); telling you about changes to our website, software or Services; and helping us (or our software developers) improve the Services. We may also use legitimate interests to send marketing materials, but only where they relate directly to the church and you have not told us not to send such information.
We may ask for your consent to send marketing communications, including information about events and other marketing materials. We may also ask for consent where you have given us information as part of pastoral care and asked us to use it for a certain purpose.
For example, to buy tickets for events.
For example: keeping records for Gift Aid purposes; preventing and detecting fraud; protecting children and vulnerable adults; and getting your feedback on the Services.
“Special categories” of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection, so we need further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of information. We may process it: in limited circumstances, with your explicit consent recorded in writing (e.g. where you tell us information to obtain support and pastoral care, such as relating to physical or mental health); where we need to carry out a legal obligation (e.g. DBS checking); where it is needed in the public interest and in line with our data protection policy; or where it is needed in connection with our children and vulnerable adults protection policy. Less commonly, we may process it where needed to protect your interests (or someone else’s) and you are not capable of giving consent, or where you have already made the information public.
In practice, we may use your sensitive personal information: relating to mental or physical health, racial origin, sexual orientation or criminal record, in order to provide you with support and pastoral care, and to help you access support and benefits if appropriate and requested by you; relating to your religious beliefs, in order to administer your membership of our church; and relating to your DBS check (which may contain information about criminal offences or presence on a register), to decide your suitability for roles in the church.
Where we require consent, we will seek (or record) your written consent, and provide you with full details of the information we would like and why, so you can carefully consider whether to consent. It is not a condition of your contract with us that you agree to any request for consent.
Whilst information relating to children is not “special category” information, it is given specific protection. Where a child is under 13, we will always ask for parental consent before allowing the child to set up an iKnow Church account, and ensure the parent can access and administer it. Where a child is 13 or over, we will permit them to have their own account, but may (if appropriate) inform their parents — we will tell the child at sign-up that we may do this, and will only do so where it is appropriate and lawful.
