Grace Community Bible Church (“the Church”) and our related entities appreciate that privacy is very important. The Church has adopted this Privacy Policy as we recognise the right of people to keep their personal information private. This Privacy Policy covers the Church’s treatment of personally identifiable information that we collect or hold. Like many other organisations, the Church must comply with the National Privacy Principles, see www.privacy.gov.au/law/act/npp contained in the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) 2000 (Cth) and the Privacy Act 2000 (Vic) when dealing with personal information.
The Church complies with the requirements of the Privacy Act 1988 (as amended). In order to safeguard an individual’s right to privacy, we have created a policy to reflect the spirit and content of the government’s privacy legislation. This will ensure we protect the trust you place in us when you provide us with your personal details. This Policy will be made available to any person requesting a copy.
Our Policy
We will use your personal details to provide any personal ministry, to administer your relationship with the Church, in the provision of spiritual, pastoral, social, educational and administrative functions of the Church, and to provide you with information on Church events and ministries.
We only collect information where it is necessary to provide a service to you, or where we are required by law to do so (eg staff superannuation and taxation information). Without your personal details we may not be able to interact with you or provide ministry opportunities in a meaningful way.
Your personal details are not generally available to everyone. In some instances information is available on an unrestricted basis (eg Grace Family Directory) but this only occurs with your full knowledge and consent.
Access to your personal information is always restricted to those staff and leaders who require the information to provide a service to you. We will not pass on any of your personal details to any other organisation or third party without your consent.
Online Security
Our commitment to privacy includes our internet sites. We have a public web site at www.gracebiblechurch.org.au which is available to anyone.
The Church collects personal information on its Internet site you when you fill out a form (eg. when registering for a conference). The information that we request is limited to what is needed to provide you with the service. When browsing our Internet site, cookies are used only for our online shop in order to facilitate transactions.
When you browse this web site, our Internet Site Host makes a record of your visit and logs the following information for statistical purposes:
- your server address
- your top level domain name (for example .com, .gov, .au, etc)
- the date and time of your visit to the site
- the pages you accessed and documents downloaded the previous site that visited and/or the Search engine keyword used to find our site
- the type of browser and operating system you are using
- the amount of data in bytes that you download from our site
No attempt is made to identify users or their browsing activities except in the event of an investigation where a law enforcement agency may inspect our logs.
Information That We Collect
There are many sources of information that we collect. The sort of information we may collect includes:
- Name and Address
- Phone numbers and email addresses so we can communicate with you
- Family member details
- Details of donations where receipts for taxation purposes are required
- Communications you have with us (eg letters, prayer requests)
- Records of discussions (eg biblical soul care sessions) – we will tell you when we keep a record of meetings/discussions
- Your involvement in ministries so we can provide a meaningful ministry relationship
- Records of visits and pastoral matters
- Staff details for superannuation, payroll, and taxation purposes.
In order to keep your information as current as possible please let us know of any changes to your personal details.
If you want a copy of this information please write to us and include the pastors/persons you deal with. You can request us to modify your personal data at any time if you believe it is not accurate, complete, or up to date.
How we use your information?
The Church will use the personal information we collect for the purpose disclosed at the time of collection, or otherwise as set out in this Privacy Policy. We will not use your personal information for any other purpose without first seeking your consent, unless authorised or required by law. Generally, we will only use and disclose your personal information as follows:
- to establish and maintain your involvement with the Church, including providing you with newsletters;
- to provide the products or services you have requested from the Church;
- to answer your inquiry;
- to register you for events, conferences, or promotions;
- to assist us to make the Church’s sites, services, and products, more valuable to our community;
- for direct promotion of products or services and to keep you informed of new developments we believe may be of interest to you. If we contact you in this way without obtaining your prior consent, we will provide you with the opportunity to decline any further promotional communications;
- to third parties where we have retained those third parties to assist us to operate the Church and provide the products or services you have requested, such as religious education instructors, catering and event coordinators, promotions companies, transport providers, health care providers, website hosts and IT consultants, and our professional advisers such as consultants, lawyers, and accountants. In some circumstances we may need to disclose sensitive information about you to third parties as part of the services you have requested; and
- to different parts of the Church to enable the development and promotion of other products and services and to improve our general ability to assist Church attendees and the wider community.
Biblical Soul Care Service
The Church conducts a free biblical soul care service. Personal information we collect from individuals before and during biblical soul care sessions is kept confidential and secure at all times. Some of this information is sensitive information (see below).
When files are not being used by a soul care Counsellor, they will be appropriately labelled and stored in locked filing cabinets. On occasion, the personal information collected by soul care Counsellor must be shared with third parties. For example, this personal information will be shared where :
- there is danger of harm being caused to the client or others;
- when the Church is required by law to disclose the information; or
- when there are matters of a serious moral nature which require the attention of Eldership within the Church.
Sensitive information
Some personal information is sensitive. Health information is sensitive information. We will only collect sensitive information with the consent of the individual, for the purposes required by the activities of the Church in provision of health services (including biblical soul care), or for other purposes allowed or required by the Act.
Any sensitive information that the Church collects in the course of its activities is covered by an exemption set out in National Privacy Principle No. 10 (NPP10). This exemption permits the Church to collect information regarding such things as the religious affiliations of Partners, Attendees and Clients (as this is naturally an important part of membership of the Church) without first receiving your consent to the collection.
In order to comply with NPP10, we assure you that:
- Such information will relate solely to members of the Church or to those who have regular contact with the Church in connection with the church’s activities; and
- The Church undertakes to all such individuals about whom the information relates that the Church will not disclose such information without the individual’s consent.
There are other matters set out in NPP10 which also govern the collection of sensitive information and the church will comply with these matters as well.
We will do everything we can do to respect your privacy and will only make your information available to those who have an absolute need to provide a service to you.
Security
The Church will take reasonable steps to keep secure any personal information which we hold and to keep this information accurate and up to date. Personal information is stored in a secure server in secure files.
The Internet is not a secure method of transmitting information. Accordingly, the Church cannot accept responsibility for the security of information you send to or receive from us over the Internet, or for any unauthorised access or use of that information.
Access to Information
We will provide people with reasonable access to their personal information collected by Grace in the course of its dealings with the person. However, in certain circumstances, we may deny access to this information to the extent that:
- Providing access would pose a serious and imminent threat to the life or health of any individual;
- Providing access would have an unreasonable impact upon the privacy of other individuals;
- Any other reason as consistent with the Act.
In such a situation we will explain to the person the reason for denying such access.
We will do everything we can do to respect the privacy of individuals and will only make an individual’s personal information available to those who have an absolute need permitted by privacy laws to provide a service to the individual.
Changes to this Policy
From time to time the Church will review this Privacy Policy. As a part of this practice, the policy will be amended as deemed necessary. The policy will be available for viewing on the Church’s website at www.gracebiblechurch.org.au. It is the responsibility of the information provider to check the policy regularly to keep up-to-date with changes.
Further Information
If you would like further information, or have any questions/queries or complaints relating to our Privacy Policy, please contact the Privacy Officer/Church Administrator by mailing to:
PO Box 7324, Dandenong, VIC 3175, Australia.
