SPCC Information Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy
Congregational Information
Updates and Amendments to the Privacy Policy
Questions or Concerns

A privacy policy is a document telling visitors to our site what information we collect and what we do with that information. Very simply: it is a short explanation of what we are doing to observe visitors to our website.

Shepherd Park Christian Church (SPCC) recognizes that your privacy is very important to you and that you have a right to control your personal information. We acknowledge that when you provide personal information about yourself to another party it is an act of trust. SPCC respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information. This statement explains our policies and practices regarding the use and disclosure of your personal information by the SPCC Site.

Because your use of this Site indicates your acceptance of the SPCC Privacy Policy, please review this Privacy Policy carefully. Please note that SPCC reviews and updates this Privacy Policy from time to time as needed without notice. Therefore, you should review the terms of this policy periodically to make sure that you are aware of how SPCC collects and uses personal information. By using this Site, you consent to the collection and use of your personal information by SPCC as explained below.

Please note: SPCC cannot accept or create account information, or accept credit card payments, from individuals who are under 18 years of age. Parents and/or Guardians must create an account first, and then add family members under the age of 18 to their family account profile.

Also note that unlike most website privacy policies, this addresses the privacy of congregational information as well as information from website visitors. We may collect information from website visitors such as guestbook entries and normal aggregate hits logs. No visitor information is given or sold to others.

Feel free to contact us with comments, questions or concerns.

— The Website Ministry

Privacy Policy

Collection and Use of Personal Information

SPCC is the sole owner of the information collected on this Site. SPCC collects two different types of information. One type is voluntary information, which you provide, such as registration information for events, membership information, or shipping and billing information. The other type of information SPCC collects is user information provided by your computer each time you visit this site, such as Internet Protocol (IP) addresses or browser. SPCC provides the application, forms, and programs to collect and manage this information.

We will not sell, rent, lease or trade personally identifiable information to anyone, and we will not disclose any collected information to others in ways different from what is disclosed in this statement.

We receive personally identifiable information including, but not limited to, your name, address, phone number, and email address. Once you register for an account and sign in to our services, you are not anonymous to us and we receive and record information about your browser including IP address, cookie information and the page you requested.

SPCC may offer services to you such as blogs, guest books, chat rooms, message boards, or other similar discussion forums. Please be aware that any information you divulge in these arenas is deemed public information and is not protected.

Financial Transaction Information

SPCC does not accept or store any credit card information or bank account information. SPCC uses a third party intermediary to perform any financial information collection and transaction processing. If you, as a User, perform a financial transaction with us or our intermediary, the intermediary must request information from you. This information includes, but is not limited to, credit card information or bank account information.

Our intermediary is solely a link in the distribution chain, and uses the information provided for the sole purpose of processing the transaction. We recommend Users read the Privacy Policy of this intermediary which can also be found on the payment page of its site.

Information Sharing and Disclosure

SPCC does not sell, rent, trade or transfer User Information to third parties. SPCC may send personally identifiable information about you to other companies or people when:

We have your consent to share the information;
We need to share your information to provide the product or service you have requested;
We need to send the information to companies who work on behalf of SPCC to provide a product or service to you. Unless we tell you differently, these companies do not have any right to use the personally identifiable information we provide to them beyond what is necessary or appropriate in our discretion to assist us in providing your product or service;
We respond to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process; or
We find that your actions on our Site violate the SPCC Terms of Use or any of our usage guidelines for specific Services.

It may be necessary − by law, legal process, litigation, and/or requests from public and governmental authorities within or outside your country of residence − for SPCC to disclose your personal information. We may also disclose information about you if we determine that for purposes of national security, law enforcement, or other issues of public importance, disclosure is necessary or appropriate.

We may also disclose information about you if we determine that disclosure is reasonably necessary to enforce our terms and conditions or protect our mission, our operations, or our users.

Links

This Site contains links to other third party Sites. Even if the third party is affiliated with SPCC through a business partnership or otherwise, SPCC is not responsible for the privacy policies or practices or the content of such external links. We encourage our Users to be aware when they leave our Site and to read the privacy statements of each and every site that collects personally identifiable information. This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by this Site.

Security

Usernames and Passwords

Access to certain content on this Site may require a username, site number and password. Your registration and/or account information is password-protected for your privacy and security. In some cases, failure to provide personal information may prevent you from accessing parts of this Site containing certain confidential information.

Any disclosure of your password to a third party may result in access to your registration and/or account information or execution of transactions. By accessing and using our Site, you agree to maintain the confidentiality of the username, site number and password you selected to access such site and consent to our Terms of Use.

Accessing and Changing Your Information

You can view and update your personal information at any time by signing in to your account on our Site and changing your profile information.

Congregational Information

In developing and maintaining the website for SPCC we go by an unofficial policy with respect to inclusion of personal information. We spell this out below both to make it clear and to invite discussion. We believe that we have a responsibility to handle congregational information carefully.

We have several basic groups of people that might be listed or referred to: staff, adult members, youth and missionaries. Information of concern includes names, email addresses, phone numbers and photos. Home addresses are never posted.

For staff, we list names, email addresses (usually office emails), and office phone numbers. No home phones, etc. It is important that people be able to contact the staff and that access is all through the office.
For adult members, we often list names when they are a contact for some group or activity that we are covering on the website. We do not list email addresses unless they have specifically given permission (they often ask us). We do not list phone numbers. It is assumed that other members have the church directory or can call the office for phone numbers.
For youth and children, we generally do not list full names, but at most the first name and initial of the last name. We also do not list email addresses or phone numbers. Photo captions do not include full names and often do not include names at all. This is more to protect them from the more dangerous types of people that can and do use the net to contact and take advantage of young people. We are currently trying to decide how to apply this policy to the guestbook for the youth group.
For missionaries (if applicable), we are very careful what, if anything, we list. Sometimes, missionaries are in countries where they would be in danger if it were known that they are ‘missionaries’ or even Christian. In some countries, it is actually illegal to be there as a Christian missionary and they could be imprisoned or deported. We don’t post info, even names, emails or country, without the explicit permission of that missionary or from our staff person in charge of missions.

Some specific areas of our online functionality have additional guidelines.

Shepherd Park Christian Church has a printed member and ministry directory with names, addresses, email, etc., which is only available to members and friends of Shepherd Park Christian Church. It is periodically distributed in print at the church. To request a copy or to add your information to this directory contact the office. This directory is not available online.
In most general terms: images of adults engaged in congregation activities and used to report on congregational events can be used without seeking permission. When using photos of SPCC events, members, etc online, either directly on the website or in our photo albums we use the following guidelines:

Including photos in our site is a privilege for us, and we intend to respect and honor it.
Photos are almost always of people in public spaces, at public events. We do not intrude into anyone’s solitude, seclusion or private property without permission.
We do not appropriate any photo of any person for any commercial use (such as advertisements, or even for illustrations months after the news event) without permission.
We do not publish (whether by photos or stories) private information without permission.
We do not appropriate any photo of any person for any commercial use (such as advertisements, or even for illustrations months after the news event) without permission. For example, if we take a photo of a child’s smiling face at the camp swimming pool in July, we may put that photo on the cover of the church newsletter, or even the local newspaper, in August or September — if it is related to a news story inside. But if we produce a brochure entitled, “Your Friends the Disciples of Christ,” we will not use that photo on the cover, or even inside, without permission. That would be a commercial use, even if we give all the brochures away for free.
But there are two exceptions to the commercial use principle. Sometimes we can use a person’s picture in a brochure or advertisement without permission. First, assuming that the photo is from a newsworthy event (broadly defined) at a public place, if the individual is not highlighted, but is incidentally visible among a large group of people, it is permissible to use the photo. How many people constitute a large group? Six or eight people is getting toward large. A group of 25 is clearly large. Second, you can use the photo for commercial purposes if the person cannot be identified in the photo. So a back shot, or a portion of a person’s body, would be permissible.
In addition, unlike the public media, church papers generally follow the rule of not publishing photos or stories that present people in a negative light, even if the facts warrant such coverage. We try not to post or print any photo or story that would be embarrassing, objectionable or hurtful to anyone in the photo or anything that presents the subject in a false light. If we know someone is shy about such things, we ask them before posting the photo.
Applying other parts of our general privacy policy, we don’t put full names of children or youth as captions with photos, and we minimize how often we use full names of adults.
We will gladly provide credit for who took a particular photo if desired by the photographer, and we would certainly honor any copyright wishes or restrictions.
We will gladly remove any photo immediately upon request. In any case, if you see a photo that includes you or your child and would like it removed from the site, we would be glad to do so. Just notify the webmaster with the details.

Please be aware, that while we never post home addresses, there are a number of websites that provide white pages, or extensive listings of mailing addresses. There are also a number of people-finder type sites that help in locating people and their names, phone numbers, email addresses, etc. These sites have many sources of data and you can probably assume that you’re in there somewhere.

Updates and Amendments to the Privacy Policy

SPCC reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to change, modify, add or remove portions of this Privacy Policy, at any time. It is your responsibility to check this Privacy Policy periodically for changes. Your continued use of the Site following the posting of changes will mean that you accept and agree to the changes.

Questions or Concerns

If you have questions regarding our Privacy Policy, the practices of this Site, or your dealings with this Site, you may contact us.

Updated by the Shepherd Park Christian Church Website Ministry on 2016-07-06.