Privacy Policy

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, a postal or email address, photographs or videos). Identification can be by the information alone or in conjunction with any other information. The processing of personal data on or after 25 May 2018 is governed primarily by the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (“GDPR”).

Who are we?

This Privacy Notice is provided to you by the Church Councils for the German Speaking Congregation in Scotland, and the German Speaking Lutheran Congregation Newcastle Upon Tyne / Middlesbrough, which are the data controllers for your data.

The German Speaking Congregation in Scotland and the German Speaking Lutheran Congregation Newcastle/Middlesbrough (“Pfarramtsbereich Schottland & Nordostengland”, hereafter “PAB”) co-operate closely with each other. These two congregations, together with other congregations, are members of the Synod of German-Speaking Lutheran, Reformed and United Congregations in Great Britain. The Church works with the pastors and other office holders of the Synod and other congregations affiliated to the Synod to enable it to perform its mission.

As the Church is made up of all of these persons and organisations working together, 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 joint data controllers. This means we are all responsible to you for how we process your data.

Each of the data controllers has their own tasks within the Church, the Synod and other congregations. A description of what data is processed and for what purpose is set out in this Privacy Notice. This Privacy Notice is sent to you on our own behalf and on behalf of each of these data controllers. In the rest of this Privacy Notice, we use the word “we” to refer to each data controller, as appropriate.

What data do the data controllers listed above process?

Names, titles, date of burth, and contact details such as telephone numbers, post 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, marital status, nationality, family composition, and dependants.

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; not to 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 of the following purposes: to keep you informed about the Church, to enable those who undertake pastoral care duties to do so; to enable us to meet all legal and statutory obligations; to administer the membership records of the Church; to fundraise and promote the interests of the Church and charity; to manage our employees and volunteers; to maintain our own accounts and records; 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; to process a grant or application for a role.

What is the legal basis for processing your personal data?

Most of our data is processed because it is necessary for our legitimate interests. Where your information is used other than in accordance with one of these legal bases, we will first obtain your consent to that use.

Sharing your personal data

Your personal data will be treated as strictly confidential. It will only be shared with third parties including other data controllers where you first give us 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 or for historical reasons. 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.)

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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 for regulatory purposes).
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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).
  7. The right to object to the processing of personal data where applicable.
  8. The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office.

Transfer of Data Abroad

Any electronic personal data transferred to countries or territories outside the EU will only be placed on systems complying with measures giving equivalent protection of personal rights either through international agreements or contracts approved by the European Union. (This is mainly relevant for data storage in cloud-based systems.) Our website is also accessible from overseas so on occasion some personal data (for example in a newsletter) may be accessed from overseas.

Further processing

If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this General Privacy 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. Updates to this Privacy Notice will be placed on the Church website.

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:

FOR SCOTLAND
The Data Controller
German Speaking Congregation
Laudate Haus
1 Chalmers Crescent
Edinburgh EH 9 1TW

FOR NEWCASTLE/ MIDDLESBROUGH
The Data Controller
German Speaking Congregation
Martin-Luther-Kirche
Clarence Street
Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 1YH