Intercontinental Church Society is an international Church of England mission agency to English-speakers who live, study, work or holiday abroad, in countries where English is not the primary language. We do this by planting and growing international churches, and by outreach to tourists through our seasonal chaplaincies.

ICS greatly values the individuals who share their details with us in order to be informed about our work. We respect your privacy and we are committed to ensuring that your personal data is kept safe and used in a way that you would reasonably expect.

This privacy policy sets out how ICS processes and protects the personal information that is given to us. Our aim is to be clear about how we will use your data and to enable you to choose what you would like to receive from us, by which means (e.g. post, email), and how often. We will also advise you how can stop receiving communications from us.

Our communications include news from our work, prayer information and fundraising needs. If you would like to find out more about our work and you have not opted in please contact us on 024 7646 3940 or at www.ics-uk.org/contact.

This policy is effective from 14^th June 2018 and will be reviewed every three years.

If you have any questions about this policy, please email [email protected] or write to: The Data Protection Lead, Intercontinental Church Society, Unit 11 Ensign Business Centre, Westwood Way, Coventry, CV4 8JA.

Intercontinental Church Society is a company limited by guarantee. Registered in England and Wales No 3630342. Registered Charity No 1072584.

Read on for information in the following sections:
• How we collect and use your personal data
• Supporters
• Sharing your story
• Children
• Employment
• How long will we keep your personal data?
• Cookies and how we use them
• How we keep your data secure and who has access to it
• Links from our website
• Your rights

 

How We Collect and Use Your Personal Data

Supporters

We may collect personal information from you when you ask to receive updates about our work, make a donation, attend an event or deputation in your church, or order resources, for example. You may give us these details by filling in forms or through our website.

We may collect the following information offered by you:

• 
  name and job title (if relevant)
  • contact information including email address and phone number
  • bank account details
  • debit or credit card details
  • Gift Aid status
  • demographic information such as age, gender, interests, local church
  • website usage data (please see ‘Cookies and How we use them’ below)

We will use this information to send you our publications, e-newsletters and other communications that you have requested from us, according to your preferences. You can contact us at any time to change your preferences or opt out of any communications from ICS.

We will also use your details to record and process your donations, send acknowledgement letters and claim Gift Aid, if applicable. From time to time, we will include information about upcoming events and our latest resources in our acknowledgement letters. We will also keep records of your communications with us, including enquiries and complaints. If you make a significant donation to our work, we may contact you to discuss your interests and specific areas of our work.

We may also ask you to complete a supporter survey which will help us to obtain feedback on our communications and supporter care, enabling us to improve these in the future.

From May 2018, we will only communicate with new supporters based on their consent. We will communicate with our existing supporters under legitimate interest: we will continue to send communications that supporters have requested in the past or are currently receiving, and communications to those who have made a financial gift in the last three years. We will provide opportunities for supporters to review their preferences and make it easy for them to opt out of our communications at any time.

We will never trade or sell your personal information to third parties. We may share your data with organisations who provide services that help us to fulfil our commitment to our supporters and beneficiaries. For example, we use third parties to mail our publications and letters, and to keep our records up to date (so we are not writing to supporters who have moved). Data sent to these organisations is only used for these purposes, and it is sent in password-protected or encrypted files.

In the course of carrying out our fundraising activities we may analyse our records internally to review categories such as donation amounts and giving history. This helps us to personalise our contact with supporters and to send appropriate communications to supporters, ensuring that we are stewarding our resources well.

Within ICS, we may look at information online about some of our supporters (for example, on social media, sites where people have put up profiles, Google) to gain a sense of their background so we can tailor our contact and resources appropriately. All of this analysis will help us to understand our supporters so that we can provide relevant communications, which will enable us to use our funds more efficiently, and improve your experience with us.

Sharing Your Story

We are privileged that you – the people with whom we work – are happy to share details about your lives with us. This helps us to provide personal support and encouragement. We will not record or share information about you without your permission. However, there may be times when we will be legally required to pass information to the appropriate bodies, e.g. if there is a safeguarding issue or the law is broken.

Some of you agree to share your stories with a wider audience, and we are grateful for this. We are able to include these in our written and online publications so our supporters can receive updates and be inspired to support our work through giving, prayer, volunteering and in other ways.

We will always ask for your permission before sharing your story more widely and explain how and where it will be used. If you are under 18, we will seek consent from your parent or guardian.

 

Children

We will seek permission from a parent or guardian before holding data on children under 18. We will also seek consent from the appropriate adult about how we will communicate with their child(ren) in the future.

Employment

We hold personal data provided by applicants during our recruitment process for staff and volunteers. If you are not successful, we will keep this data on file for 12 months, after which it will be destroyed, unless we communicate otherwise.

How Long Will We Keep Your Personal Data?

We will only keep your data as long as is reasonable and necessary. We will use it for the designated purposes or to fulfil statutory obligations. We will hold financial data for seven years, and legacy and standing order records indefinitely. Data sent to mailing houses will always be sent with a protective password and deleted within a month of the mailing.

If we have not heard from you in three years, we will seek your consent.

If you ask us not to communicate with you we will respect your wishes.

Cookies and How We Use Them

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer's hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added, and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie does not give us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

We do not store personal information in cookies. We do however use Google Analytics, who do set cookies to track repeat visits to our own website.

How We Keep Your Data Secure and Who Has Access To It

We are committed to holding your information securely. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place a number of administrative and technological safeguards. These include use of passwords, restricted access, technical and physical security. The only people who access your data are those who have been nominated and trained to do so.

Your data may also be available to our website provider to enable us and them to deliver their service to us, carry out analysis and research on demographics, interests and behavior of our users and supporters to help us gain a better understanding of them to enable us to improve our services.  This may include connecting data we receive from you on the website to data available from other sources.  Your personally identifiable data will only be used where it is necessary for the analysis required, and where your interests for privacy are not deemed to outweigh their legitimate interests in developing new services for us.  In the case of this activity the following will apply:

1. Your data will be made available to our website provider
2. The data that may be available to them include any of the data we collect as described in this privacy policy.
3. Our website provider will not transfer your data to any other third party, or transfer your data outside of the EEA.
4. They will store your data for a maximum of 7 years.
5. This processing does not affect your rights as detailed in this privacy policy

All our online forms are always transmitted over encrypted links, and our network is protected and routinely monitored. Any debit or credit card details which we receive via our website are passed securely to our payment processing partner, according to the Payment Card Industry Security Standards.

Links From Our Website

From time to time, we may include links to third party webpages on our website. Please note that once you leave our website we are not responsible for any data you share on these sites. Please read each organisation’s privacy policy before submitting your personal data on its website.

Your Rights

You can ask for a copy of the information we hold about you at any time. Please write to the Data Protection Lead, Intercontinental Church Society, Unit 11 Ensign Business Centre, Westwood Way, Coventry, CV4 8JA with details of the information you would like to see and proof of your identity.

You can also ask us to stop using your data or to delete some information from our records, although we will need to keep a record of any donations you have made to us over the last seven years. Please let us know if you change your address, or if there are any other changes to the information we hold on you. We will promptly correct any information on our records.

If you have any concerns about the data we hold or how we process it, please contact us at the above address. If your issue is not resolved you can contact the Fundraising Regulator or the Information Commissioner.

By agreeing to this privacy notice you agree with the use of your personal information as outlined above.