Slough Baptist Church Privacy Notice

This notice explains how and why we use your personal data.

“We” in this notice refers to the Trustees of Slough Baptist Church, who are the data controller for the personal data you provide. As data controller we are responsible for informing you about how we process your data and explaining to you the rights that you have.

Why we collect your personal data

We collect personal data to help us to communicate well with you about church activities that you are involved with and new events that are coming up. We also use personal data so that we can manage the following things properly:

Membership, attendance and the newsletter (e.g. birthdays & anniversaries)
Pastoral care for those connected with the church
Services to the community (e.g. Parent & Toddler groups)
Safeguarding children, young people and adults at risk
Staff management (e.g. appraisals)
Volunteer management (e.g. rotas)
Financial governance (e.g. Gift Aid)
Publicity – including our website
Maintaining the security of our property and premises
Responding effectively to enquirers and handling any complaints
Legal requirements (e.g. the marriage register)

What sort of data we use

The information that we keep usually consists of your name, adult/child, gender and family connections. If you have provided them to us then we will also keep your address, telephone number, email addresses, mobile number, occupation, website, company, allergies and date-of-birth. If the church is providing you with pastoral care, then information relating to this may be stored. We will also store information regarding membership of groups or committees within the church, such as whether you attend a home group.

How we keep your data

We use a computer system to keep all this data safe and to help us comply with data protection regulations. The computer system is set up to control who can see which data, so that we can ensure your data is only seen and used by the right people.

We also keep paper records, for example when you fill in a form on paper to provide your address and to agree what we can use it for. These paper records are stored securely in locked cabinets or locked offices.

Sharing your data

We share parts of your data with the following organisations:

ChurchBuilder, who provide our church database software, and will be able to see your contact details and which groups you attend.
Stewardship Services, who inspect our accounts, and will be able to see details of donations.
JotForm, who collect our registration details for events like Holiday Club, and will be able to see your contact details

We have contracts with these organisations to ensure that they respect your privacy and rights.

Our computer backups are stored using Microsoft’s UK-based cloud service.

If you opt in to allowing your data to be included on our Members’ Directory, then the parts of your contact details that you have agreed to be put in the directory will be shared with people in the church who have become Members or Associates.

If we wish to share your data with any other organisations, we will inform you before we do so, and you will have the right to opt out.

How long we store your personal data

Your personal data will be held on our database during the period of our active relationship. We review our use of data annually, and if this review finds the data is no longer required then we will take all reasonable steps to destroy it or erase it from our systems. We will also destroy the data if you ask us to (unless we have a legal

obligation to keep it, e.g. for child protection purposes).

How we use information about you

We process and store information on any invitations we have sent to you for activities or events, your attendance at any activities or events, details of any church-related subscriptions and all information we may have requested for the purposes of Safeguarding checks.

We may “profile” the information we collect about you and use automatic processing based on group membership, age, gender or address.

We also use your information when we process our finances, such as Gift Aid, one-off donations or standing orders.

If you are involved with a ministry at the church we may email or text you about this ministry, for instance with rota updates or information about what's coming up. If you opt-in to receiving emails about new ministries, events or products then we can keep you advised of those things that may interest you.

What we are legally allowed to do with your personal data

If you are a regular attendee at the church or a recent new contact then we are allowed to keep data such as your contact details because they are necessary to run the church.

If you are not a regular attendee then we are allowed to process your data only if you have opted in to give us your consent to do so.

If you have left the church, we are allowed to keep your name on record for historical or statistical purposes for a limited period of 3 years. We may keep more details and for longer periods if you have been involved in ministries that have legal record-keeping obligations such as child-protection, employment or accident reporting.

What we are legally allowed to do will never supersede your rights, as described in the next section.

Your Rights

You have the following rights, which you can use at any time:

To withdraw your previous consent for us to process your data.
To get a free report of what data we hold about you. (Note that for excessive requests we can charge a reasonable fee for responding or we can refuse to respond.)
To have wrong data corrected.
To be given a clear explanation of why and how we process your personal information.
To be forgotten – to request that your data is not used for certain purposes or is completely deleted. (Note this does not apply to data used for legal purposes such as Safeguarding)
To request a copy of your data in an easily usable computer format.
To object to your data being used for direct marketing.
To make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if you think we have been mishandling your data.

The full detail of your rights can be found on the ICO's website: ico.org.uk

What else you should know about privacy

If you use our church database, you are responsible for keeping your usernames and passwords secret.

Our website pages contain links to other websites, and we want you to be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices on other websites.

Please respect the rights of other people, and do not pass on data about them without their permission.

Your Questions

Your questions may already be answered in Slough Baptist Church’s Data Protection Policy, which you can read by clicking here or by requesting to see a printed copy from the church office:

Slough Baptist Church

Windsor Road

Slough SL1 2EJ

01753 523058

For more information, or if you have any questions or worries about the way we process your data, please email our Data Protection Coordinator at or contact the church office at the address above.

If you are not satisfied with the way we respond to you, then you have the right to Information Commissioner’s Office in the following ways:

Website: www.ico.org.uk
Phone: 0303 123 1113
Email: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email/
Post: Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire. SK9 5AF

Changes to this Privacy Notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated in April 2024, to be compliant with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).