The trustees of The Link Church

Your personal data – what is it?

Personal data relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data. Identification can be by the information alone or in conjunction with any other information in the data controller’s possession or likely to come into such possession. The processing of personal data is currently governed by the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (the “GDPR”).

Who are we?

The trustees of The Link Church is the data controller. This means it decides how your personal data is processed and for what purposes.

How do we process your personal data?

The trustees of The Link Church complies with its obligations under “the GDPR” by keeping personal data up to date; by storing and destroying it securely; by not collecting or retaining excessive amounts of data; by protecting personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure and by ensuring that appropriate technical measures are in place to protect personal data.

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

• To provide pastoral care to the congregation;
• To enable us to provide a voluntary service for the benefit of the public as specified in our charity constitution;
• To administer membership records;
• To fundraise and promote the interests of the charity;
• To manage our employees and volunteers;
• To maintain our own accounts and records;
• To process gift aid applications;
• To operate The Link Church web site and social media platforms to deliver the services that individuals have requested, including member-only sections;
• To inform individuals of news, events, activities or services running at The Link Church;

What is the legal basis for processing your personal data?

• Explicit consent of the data subject enables us to keep you informed of news, events, activities, services and to access the website members section.
• Processing is necessary for carrying out obligations in relation to Gift Aid or under employment, social security or social protection law, or a collective agreement;
• Processing is carried out by a not-for-profit body with a political, philosophical, religious or trade union aim provided: -
  • the processing relates only to members or former members (or those who have regular contact with it in connection with those purposes); and
  • there is no disclosure to a third party without consent
• Processing relates to personal data manifestly made public by the data subject;
• Processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or where courts are acting in their judicial capacity;

Sharing your personal data

Your personal data will be treated as strictly confidential, and will be shared only with Church congregation and leaders. We will only share your data with third parties outside of the parish with your consent.

How long do we keep your personal data?

The trustees of The Link Church will keep your personal data for no longer than reasonably necessary. As a guide:

• User account data for the website will be stored for a full calendar year after the date of last access;
• Membership records will be stored for 5-years after the calendar year to which they relate, in case of legal claims, complaints and safeguarding;
• Gift aid declarations and associated paperwork will be kept for a minimum of 6-years after the calendar year to which they relate;

Furthermore, data storage policies will be reviewed annually as part of the Annual General Meeting and the Personal Data audit updated accordingly.

Your rights and your personal data

Unless subject to an exemption under the GDPR, you have the following rights with respect to your personal data: -

• The right to request a copy of your personal data which the trustees of The Link Church holds about you;
• The right to request that the trustees of The Link Church corrects any personal data if it is found to be inaccurate or out of date;
• The right to request your personal data is erased where it is no longer necessary for trustees of The Link Church to retain such data;
• The right to withdraw your consent to the processing at any time;
• The right to request that the data controller provide the data subject with his/her personal data and where possible, to transmit that data directly to another data controller, (known as the right to data portability), (where applicable)
• The right, where there is a dispute in relation to the accuracy or processing of your personal data, to request a restriction is placed on further processing;
• The right to object to the processing of personal data, (where applicable)
• The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office.

Further processing

If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this Data Protection 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 and whenever necessary, we will seek your prior consent to the new processing.

Contact Details

To exercise all relevant rights, queries of complaints please in the first instance contact the trustees of The Link Church by writing to: The Link Church, C/O 16 Watermeadow Drive, WALSALL, WS4 1TA UK or via email to .

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.

Google Analytics Notice

This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses “cookies”, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyse how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. In case of activation of the IP anonymization, Google will truncate/anonymize the last octet of the IP address for Member States of the European Union as well as for other parties to the Agreement on the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases, the full IP address is sent to and shortened by Google servers in the USA. On behalf of the website provider Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage to the website provider. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.

You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser. However, please note that if you do this, you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website. Furthermore you can prevent Google’s collection and use of data (cookies and IP address) by downloading and installing the browser plug-in available under https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en-GB. Learn more about the opt-out and how to properly install the browser plug-in here.

Further information concerning the terms and conditions of use and data privacy can be found at https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/gb.html or at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/. By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by The Link Church in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

Social Media Notice

This section of the privacy policy was taken from material produced by WILDE BEUGER SOLMECKE and can be found on https://www.wbs-law.de.

You may visit our website without providing personal details. Your personal details will only be collected if you freely disclose them during your visit to our website or internet profile.

Links to Social Media

Our website contains links to the following external social networks:

• Facebook Inc. (Facebook) https://www.facebook.com/policy.php
  • 1601 S. California Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94304 USA.
• Twitter Inc. (Twitter) https://twitter.com/en/privacy
  • 1355 Market Street, Suite 900, San Francisco, CA 94103 USA.
• Google LLC (Google+) https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-GB
  • 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA.

Links to Social Media are made clearly visible on our website through the use of logos and through specific buttons.

Where these links are followed, social media plug-ins will be activated, and your browser will establish a direct link with the relevant providers servers.

If you follow the links on our website whilst you are signed into your social media user account, information concerning your visit to our website will be passed to the social media provider, who can assign your visit to our website to your user account.

This information could be transferred to and stored by the social media platform. To prevent this, you must log out of your social media account before clicking on the link.

Functionalities attached to social media links, in particular the transfer of information and user data are not automatically activated by visiting our website but are only activated upon clicking the relevant link.

Facebook Plugin

Our website contains a programme (plug-in) operated by the social network Facebook. These programmes are exclusively operated by:

• Facebook Inc. (Facebook) https://www.facebook.com/policy.php
  • 1601 S. California Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94304 USA.

The plug-in is clearly visible on our website through the use of the Facebook logo or through the add-on “like” button.

When visiting our website or profile containing such a plug-in, your browser will establish a direct link with the servers operated by Facebook; as a result the content of the plug-in will be transferred to your browser and embedded in the website being shown.

If you visit our website whilst signed into your Facebook user account, information concerning your visit will be transferred to Facebook. Facebook can assign your visit to our website to your user account. Information arising from interaction with the Facebook plug-ins (such as by clicking the Facebook “like” button or by leaving a comment) will be directly transferred to and stored by Facebook. To prevent this, you must log out of your Facebook account before visiting our website.

Social Media Privacy Policy

Please refer to the social media platforms privacy policy (link available next to their name) for more information on: the purpose and scope of data collection and data analysis undertaken by the platform, your rights, how to modify settings and how to protect your privacy.

If you have any questions about data collection, analysis and use of personal data, disclosure, amendment, blocking and deletion of personal data contact the data controller mentioned at the beginning of this policy.