Contact – Stowmarket Parish church

The church is staffed by volunteers and the church office is open on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays 10am – 1pm

The church office phone number is (01449) 774652 or email offic e @stowmarketparishchurch.co.uk

The Church of St Peter and St Mary Stowmarket
GENERAL PRIVACY NOTICE June 2018
Your personal data – what is it?
“Personal data” is any information about a living individual which allows them to be identified from
that data (for example a name, photographs, videos, email address, or address). Identification can
be by the information alone or in conjunction with any other information.
Who are we?
The Parochial Church Council (PCC) of the Church of St Peter and St Mary Stowmarket
(the Church, we, us) is the principal data controller for your data.
The Church of England is made up of a number of different organisations and office-holders who
work together to deliver the Church’s mission in our community. The PCC works together with:

The incumbent of the parish (that is, our vicar Michael Eden);
Other churches within the Deanery and their incumbents;
The Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich.
As the Church is made up of all of these persons and organisations working together, from time to
time we may need to share personal data we hold with them so that they can carry out their
responsibilities to the Church and our community. The organisations referred to above are also data
controllers. This means we are all responsible to you for how we process your data.
Each of the data controllers have their own tasks within the Church and a description of what data is
processed and for what purpose is set out in this Privacy Notice.
What data do the data controllers listed above process?
They will process some or all of the following where necessary to perform their tasks:
Names, titles and aliases, photographs;
Contact details such as telephone numbers, addresses, and email addresses;
Where they are relevant to our mission, or where you provide them to us, we may process
demographic information such as gender, age, date of birth, marital status, nationality,
family composition, and dependants;
Where you make donations or pay for activities such as use of a church hall, financial
identifiers such as bank account numbers, payment card numbers, other
payment/transaction identifiers.
How do we process your personal data?
The data controllers will comply with their legal obligations to keep personal data up to date; to
store and destroy it securely; to not collect or retain excessive amounts of data; to keep personal
data secure, and to protect personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure and
to ensure that appropriate technical measures are in place to protect personal data.
We use your personal data for some or all the following purposes:

To enable us to meet all legal and statutory obligations (which include maintaining and
publishing our electoral roll in accordance with the Church Representation Rules);
To carry out comprehensive safeguarding procedures (including due diligence and
complaints handling) in accordance with best safeguarding practice from time to time with
the aim of ensuring that all children and adults-at-risk are provided with safe environments;
To minister to you and provide you with pastoral and spiritual care and to organise and
perform ecclesiastical services for you, such as baptisms, confirmations, weddings and
funerals;
To deliver the Church’s mission to our community, and to carry out any other voluntary or
charitable activities for the benefit of the public as provided for in the constitution and
statutory framework of each data controller;
To administer the parish records;
To fundraise and promote the interests of the Church and charity;
To maintain our own accounts and records;
To process a donation that you have made (including Gift Aid information);
To seek your views or comments;
To notify you of changes to our services, 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 enable us to provide a voluntary service for the benefit of the public in a particular
geographical area as specified in our constitution.
What is the legal basis for processing your personal data?
Most of our data is processed because it is necessary for our legitimate interests, or the legitimate
interests of a third party (such as another organisation in the Church of England). For example:

Where you have signed up for a small group, event or other regular church activity (including
Little Fishes, St Mary’s Pre-school, Messy Church and Christmas Tree Festival) we will
communicate with you about that event or group and any other related church activity;
Safeguarding work to protect children and adults at risk;
Where we need to communicate with you about important information such as changes to
services or events;
A ministry or group that you are involved in as part of a serving team.
Some of our processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation. For example:
To administer and publish the electoral roll and;
Under Canon Law, to announce forthcoming weddings by means of the publication of banns;
We may also process data if it is necessary for the performance of a contract with you, or to take
steps to enter a contract. For example:
Processing your data in connection with the hire of church facilities;
Managing employees and suppliers.
Religious organisations are also permitted to process information about your religious beliefs to
administer membership or contact details.
Where your information is used other than in accordance with one of these lawful bases, we will
first obtain your consent to that use.
Sharing your personal data
Your personal data will be treated as strictly confidential. It may be necessary to share your
personal data with third parties outside the Church of England where it is necessary for the
performance of our tasks (e.g. funeral director, accountant, lawyer, insurance company, IT support)
or where legally required to do so. In any other circumstance we will seek your prior consent.
How long do we keep your personal data?
We will keep some records permanently if we are legally required to do so. Church magazines
(Grapevine) are considered to be historical records and may be kept indefinitely. We may keep some
other records for an extended period of time. For example, it is current best practice to keep
financial records for a minimum period of 7 years to support HMRC audits, and all data relating to
children’s activities must be kept for 50 years. In general, we will endeavour to keep data only for as
long as we need it. This means that we may delete it when it is no longer needed.
Your rights and your personal data
You have the following rights with respect to your personal data. 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 one month.
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 correct and update the information we hold on you;

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

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 data we hold.
When we receive your request we will confirm whether the data 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
grounds to continue to process your data. Even after you exercise your right to object, we
may continue to hold your data to comply with your other rights or to bring or defend legal
claims.

The right to data portability;

You have the right to request that we transfer some of your data 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.
Transfer of Data Abroad
Data is normally acquired, stored and processed by us wholly within the United Kingdom. Internet
and storage/backup facilities are provided by BT and Microsoft respectively, who may convey or
store the data outside the EU. Our website is also accessible from overseas so on occasion some
personal data (for example in a newsletter) may be accessed from outside the EU.
Further processing
If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this Notice, then we will
provide you with a new Notice explaining this new use prior to commencing the processing and
setting out the relevant purposes and processing conditions. Where necessary, we will seek your
prior consent to the new processing.
Contact Details
Please contact us if you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or the information we hold
about you or to exercise all relevant rights, queries or complaints at:
The Data Compliance Officer
St Peter & St Mary’s Church
Station Road West
Stowmarket
Suffolk IP14 1ES
Tel: 01449 774652
Email: stowmarketparishchurch@btconnect.com
You can contact the Information Commissioners Office on 0303 123 1113 or via email
https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email/ or at:
The Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF.
SPSM Privacy Policy V1.0 19/06/2018