Privacy Policy — Hope of Life Community Church

Definition of specific terms

The terms “we”, “us” or “our” refer to Hope of Life Community Church.

“Privacy information” includes personal and sensitive information.

Purpose of this policy

Hope of Life Community Church is subject to the Privacy Act 1988. This Privacy Policy explains how our organization protects the privacy of information in compliance with the APP outlining how we collect, store, use and disclose and personal information provided to us or collected from other sources.

This Privacy Policy informs people how they can access their private information, correct private information held by us and to lodge a complaint

Introduction

Hope of Life Community Church is committed to providing quality services to you and this policy outlines our ongoing obligations to you in respect of how we manage your Personal Information.

We have adopted the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act). The NPPs govern the way in which we collect, use, disclose, store, secure and dispose of your Personal Information.

A copy of the Australian Privacy Principles may be obtained from the website of The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at www.aoic.gov.au

What is Personal Information and why do we collect it?

Personal Information is information or an opinion that identifies an individual. Examples of Personal Information we collect include but not limited to: names, date of birth, addresses, email addresses, phone and facsimile numbers.

This Personal Information is obtained in many ways including church attendee’s profile form, registration forms, membership application forms, other church forms, interviews, correspondence, by telephone and facsimile, by email, via our website www.hopeoflife.org.au, from your website, from media and publications, from other publicly available sources, from cookies and from third parties. We don’t guarantee website links or policy of authorised third parties.

We collect your Personal Information for the primary purpose of providing our services to you, providing information to our pastors, church leaders, and ministry volunteers. We may also use your Personal Information for secondary purposes closely related to the primary purpose, in circumstances where you would reasonably expect such use or disclosure. You may unsubscribe from our mailing lists at any time by contacting us in writing.

When we collect Personal Information we will, where appropriate and where possible, explain to you why we are collecting the information and how we plan to use it.

Sensitive Information

Sensitive information is defined in the Privacy Act to include information or opinion about such things as an individual’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of a political association, religious or philosophical beliefs, membership of a trade union or other professional body, criminal record or health information.

Sensitive information will be used by us only:

• For the primary purpose for which it was obtained

• For a secondary purpose that is directly related to the primary purpose

• With your consent; or where required or authorised by law.

Third Parties

Where reasonable and practicable to do so, we will collect your Personal Information only from you. However, in some circumstances we may be provided with information by third parties. In such a case we will take reasonable steps to ensure that you are made aware of the information provided to us by the third party.

Disclosure of Personal Information

Personal Information will only be used for the purpose it was collected and for related purposes that the person would reasonably expect it to be used.

We will only use personal information to:

Establish and maintain an individual’s involvement with the Church, including providing information regarding Church events and activities;
Provide products or services the individual has requested form the Church;
Answer inquiries; and
Register individuals for events or promotions.

We will only disclose personal information to:

Third parties only where it will assist hope of Life Community Church in its operations, such as event coordinators, department leaders, friendship group leaders;
If we are required by law to disclose information; and
For any other reasonable purpose as allowed or required by the Act.

Hope of Life Community Church does not rent, sell or exchange personal information. We may disclose personal information to third parties when we are legally required to do so, for example government departments.

We may from time to time share de-identified information to third parties for statistical and research reasons. Any information we share in this manner will be non-personal, non-sensitive and de-identified.

Register of Members

The church secretary shall keep and maintain a Register of Members, in which shall be entered the full name and address and date of acceptance of the name of each member. The Incorporated Associations Act requires that the register shall be available for inspection free of charge by members upon request at the address of the Church. A member may make a copy of the entries in the register.

Online Privacy

Hope of Life Community Church is committed to privacy on its internet sites. Hope of Life Community Church operate a website at https://hopeoflife.org.au which is publicly available. Hope of Life Community Church collects personal information on its internet site when individuals request a service (eg. online registration to a Church event). The information collected is limited to what is needed to provide the requested service. When the Hope of Life Community Church web site is browsed, the internet site host may make a record of the visit and log information for statistical purposes. This may include:

Server address;
Top level domain name (for example .com, .gov, .au, .uk etc.);
Date and time of visit to the site;
Pages accessed, and documents downloaded;
Previous site that visited and/or the Search engine keyword used to find our site;
Type of browser and operating system being used; and
Amount of data in bytes that was downloaded from the site.

No attempt is made to identify users or their browsing activities apart from in the event of an authorised investigation or where a law enforcement agency may inspect logs. Social media pages such as Facebook or Twitter may be established for Hope of Life Community Church. The Church will not divulge personal information of people on these pages. Individuals should be aware that the Church has limited ability to control any information posted on these pages. Anyone posting information on these pages should familiarise themselves with the Privacy Policy of the respective social media sites.

Security of Personal Information

Your Personal Information is stored in a manner that reasonably protects it from misuse and loss and from unauthorized access, modification or disclosure.

When your Personal Information is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was obtained, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify your Personal Information. However, most of the Personal Information is or will be stored in client files which will be kept by us for a minimum of 7 years.

Access to your Personal Information

You may access the Personal Information we hold about you and to update and/or correct it, subject to certain exceptions. If you wish to access your Personal Information, please contact us in writing.

Hope of Life Community Churchwill not charge any fee for your access request but may charge an administrative fee for providing a copy of your Personal Information.

In order to protect your Personal Information, we may require identification from you before releasing the requested information.

We will also provide people with reasonable access to their personal information collected by Hope of Life Community Church in the course of its dealings with the person. When requesting access, we will ask individuals to provide some form of identification so that we can ensure that they are the person to whom the information relates.

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; or
any other reason as consistent with the Act.

In such a situation we will explain in writing to the person the reason for denying such access.

Pastoral Care

Hope of Life Community Church may engage in personal and private discussions in the course of providing pastoral care. Information of a sensitive nature may be collected during these pastoral care sessions. Personal information collected from individuals before and during pastoral care sessions is kept confidential and secure at all times.

Sensitive information stored electronically will be appropriately secured to ensure only authorised persons have access. When paper files are being used, they will be appropriately labelled and stored in locked filing cabinets.

On occasion, the personal information collected in the course of providing pastoral care must be shared with third parties. Personal information will be shared when:

there is danger of harm being caused to the client or others;
when Hope of Life Community Church is required by law to disclose information; or
where there are matters of a serious behavioural nature which require the attention of senior leadership within the church.

Maintaining the Quality of your Personal Information

It is an important to us that your Personal Information is up to date. We will take reasonable steps to make sure that your Personal Information is accurate, complete and up-to-date. If you find that the information we have is not up to date or is inaccurate, please advise us as soon as practicable so we can update our records and ensure we can continue to provide quality services to you.