Privacy Policy | Grace City Church

Newfrontiers Grace City Church Incorporated (“Grace City”, “we”, “us, “our”) appreciate the value of your personal information and the importance of keeping it safe.

While Grace City may be exempt from the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles, we seek to deal carefully with any personal information we collect, store, use or disclose, as provided for in this policy (“Privacy Policy”).

Grace City collects and holds personal information about you for the primary purpose of operating a Christian ministry, providing religious outreach, engagement and pastoral support.

We collect, record and retain information about you for that ministry and our related activities, to deliver services, to facilitate your participation and meet our legal obligations.

If you are the parent, guardian or carer of a child enrolling or enrolled in one of our children’s ministries or one of the services provided for children, then references to “your” personal information or privacy in this privacy policy should be taken to include references to your child’s, or children’s, personal information or privacy (as appropriate).

Collection of Information

We may collect personal information from you in the following ways:

When you visit one of our church services, gatherings, ceremonies, events, conferences or courses;
If you voluntarily sign up for one of our newsletters;
If you complete a Communication Card or a Get Connected Form or another official church forms;
In video, voice or image recordings, including the recording of church services or events;
When you complete a Children’s Ministry Registration Form or if your child joins one of our youth or children’s ministry events;
If you are employed by Grace City or seek employment with Grace City;
In providing services to Grace City or partnering with us in one of our service programs or in seeking to provide such services;
If you communicate with us by email or telephone or through our social media channels;
If you make a financial contribution to the church by way of EFT or through our website (https://www.gracecitychurch.net/ );
If you seek to be married or hold a ceremony at Grace City’s premises or have your wedding or ceremony officiated by a Grace City agent or employee;
If you volunteer to assist Grace City or are seeking to volunteer to assist us;
When you engage with us or a Grace City employee, representative, agent, contractor or volunteer; and
If you seek our pastoral care, support, prayer or assistance.

We endeavour to collect all personal information directly from you but there may be limited circumstances in which we collected your personal information from a third party in order to provide services or assistance to you.

If you are a third party providing personal information to Grace City on behalf of another, please advise that person of the existence and contents of this Privacy Policy.

When we deal with organisations such as corporations, we may collect personal information about employees, directors, officers, principals, agents or their associates. If you are an organization and you are providing us with personal information about individuals, please ensure that you refer them to the existence and contents of this Privacy Policy.

If Grace City receives any unsolicited personal information, which could have been solicited in the normal course of its activities, it may use this information in compliance with this Privacy Policy and applicable law. However, any unsolicited personal information that is received by us and would not otherwise have been collected in the course of our normal activities, will be destroyed or de-identified as soon as practicable, provided it is lawful and reasonable to do so.

Anonymity

It is your right not to give us any information and to use a pseudonym and/or not to identify yourself to us.

We will accommodate a request for anonymity as long as it is practical and legal to do so. However, this may impair our ability to provide you with assistance or the service you require or in limited situations, prevent you from participating in Grace City’s activities.

What personal information we collect

The type of personal information we collect and hold will depend on the purpose for which it was collected and can include, but is not limited to, the following:

personal details such as your name, age or date of birth, gender;
contact details such as your address, telephone numbers, facsimile number and/or email address;
occupation, employer, university or school and year group;
allergies;
dietary requirements;
details of your doctor;
medicare number and private health insurance details;
care arrangements including custody arrangements or parenting orders;
records of financial giving or donations, credit card details and/or financial institution account details;
information relating to working with children and child protection requirements;
employment application information including employment history and educational qualifications;
any information voluntarily provided by you, for example, when you send us an enquiry from our website or apply for employment with, or to provide services to us;
any other relevant information required in order to provide services to you or for you to participate in our activities.

We will also hold all the communications that we have with you.

Sensitive Information

Grace City also collects sensitive information.

The type of sensitive information we collect includes information about your marital status and family composition, racial or ethnic origin, criminal record and court records, medical records, disability status, sexual orientation or practices, religious beliefs or affiliation, philosophical beliefs, health information, membership of a trade union or political opinion or membership of a political association (“Sensitive Information”).

Medical records and health information may be sought in relation to your child when your child is placed under our care, information sought will include details of medication to be administered, behavioural or medical diagnosis and whether they have received immunisations.

Sensitive Information is collected in limited circumstances, with your consent or when permissible under Australian law. Sensitive Information will only be used for a legitimate purpose where it is reasonably necessary.

If you are an organisation or third party who is providing us with Sensitive Information about another individual, please ensure that you are authorised by the relevant person to disclose the information to us.

Information collected from our website

In viewing our websites our internet service provider makes a record of your visit and logs certain information for statistical and website development purposes. This information may include:

date and time of your visit to https://www.gracecitychurch.net/
server address, your top level domain name and the type of browser you are using;
pages you visited and the information you accessed and/or downloaded; and
the areas of your interest.

We may also use analytical web tools to collect visitor information for us to understand how to improve our website and services to you. We may use Google Analytics or a like system for this purpose who uses other data collection methods. We will store any data collected in this way securely and not share it with third parties.

We also use external service providers to:

host our website;
gather non-personal information through Cookies in order to improve our website’s effectiveness.

When you engage with us through https://gracecitychurch.net/ we may use a feature of your browser called a cookie to assign your computer a user identity (“Cookies”). Cookies are small text files stored on your computer or mobile device by your web browser. These Cookies do not contain information by which we can identify you but they do identify the type of browser used, the Internet Service Provider used and which information or areas of our website that you visited.

We will not use the information contained in Cookies for anything other than to improve the functionality and security of our website.

You can configure your browser to notify you before Cookies are downloaded or to disable Cookies, please refer to the help menu in your internet browser in order to do so.

External Links

The Grace City website may contain links to other websites that we have included on our website purely for your convenience. When you click on a link to another site you are leaving our website and are no longer protected by this Privacy Policy; you must locate that website’s Privacy Policy to see how your personal information is handled and managed.

The information, website and entity to which the link relates is neither controlled nor endorsed by us. We are not responsible for the content or information on any linked site or any changes to the linked site.

Collection and Disclosure of Information due to Covid 19

During the Covid 19 pandemic, we are also required to maintain a register of attendees at all gatherings on church property, including attendances at weddings, private worship and small religious ceremonies.

Personal information must be kept about all guests and staff for contact tracing purposes for a period of at least 28 days. If requested, we are obliged to provide this information to public health officials.

Use and Disclosure of personal information

We expect that the particular purpose for which we have collected your personal information will be clear at the point and time at which it is obtained.

Some common examples of our use and disclosure of that information includes situations in which:

we record details of gatherings, church services, events and ceremonies;
we provide services to you or you seek the provision of services;
we update the church on particular events in which you are involved;
you ask to join a Life Group or participate therein;
children participate in a children’s or youth ministry;
if emergency or third party care is immediately required by a person in our care;
you require pastoral care;
we record the details of your donation or financial giving and account therefor;
volunteering rosters and schedules are created and distributed to other volunteers;
we maintain pastoral records;
a directory of church members is created;
we engage with you and manage our relationship with you;
we engage with our insurance providers;
we resolve any legal, complaints or issues
we assess and process any employment applications;
we manage employment related issues; and
we are required to comply with legal and professional obligations.

We may also use your personal information to send you promotional material in relation to our services offering but in this situation we will provide you with the option to opt-out of receiving this material.

We do not sell or trade personal information. Under no circumstances will your email address be added to a third-party mailing list or used for any other purpose without your consent being obtained or where it is required by law.

We hold and use your personal information for the particular purposes for which it was collected. The only exceptions to this are where you consent to the use or disclosure for another purpose, you would reasonably expect us to use or disclose the information for another purpose or we are legally required to do so such consent may be written or implied through your words and conduct.

How we store and protect data

We understand and appreciate the value of your personal information and the security and confidentiality thereof. We take all reasonable steps to protect the information we hold on you against unauthorized access, misuse, interference, loss, modification, alteration and/or disclosure.

We protect the personal information we hold with physical, electronic and managerial procedures by:

imposing confidentiality requirements on our employees and contractors;
implementing security measures for access to our systems;
implementing website protection measures;
only providing access to personal information when it is shown to be necessary and once proper identification has been given; and
periodic evaluation of information protection practices.

Any information and data that you input into our website, https://www.gracecitychurch.net/ , is collected from our website and stored on the Tithely Church Management System.

Access to either paper-based or computerised records will only be granted where there is a demonstrated need for this access.

We will retain your personal information while it is required for our business functions and for any other lawful purposes. When we no longer need to retain your personal information we will destroy it or de-identify the information.

Sending Information Overseas

We will not send your personal information outside of Australia without your approval or otherwise complying with the APPs or where you require assistance or services outside of Australia.

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that any recipients overseas respect the confidentiality of this information by abiding by the equivalent privacy laws or the APPs.

Access to Your Personal Information

Additionally, you are entitled to have access to the personal information we hold about you. This is subject to certain exceptions set out in the Privacy Act and we will also require you to verify your identity and to specify what information you require. We require such requests to be in writing and sent to our Privacy Officer (details below).

We will respond to your request for access to your information within a reasonable time after you make the request and if access is granted, access will be provided within 30 days from your request.

We will accept your request for access unless, giving access would be unlawful, we are required or authorised by law or a court/tribunal order to deny access or giving access is likely to prejudice one or more enforcement related activities conducted by an enforcement body.

Correction of information

In order to provide you with services, facilitate your participation in our outreach and engage with you we require the personal information that you furnish to us to be accurate, relevant, complete and up-to-date. If any of your details have changed, please contact us.

If you believe that the information we have about you is not accurate, complete or up-to-date, contact us and we will use all reasonable efforts to correct the information. Your request for correction will be dealt with within 30 days, or such longer period as agreed by you.

We will accept your request for correction where we are satisfied that your information is inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading. Upon accepting a request for correction of your information, we will take all steps that are reasonable in the circumstances, having regard to the purpose for which your information is held, to correct your information.

If we deny your request for access or correction, we will provide you with a written notice detailing reasons for the refusal and the process for making a complaint about the refusal to grant your request.

Complaints

If you believe that we have breached a term of this Privacy Policy, the Privacy Act or the Australian Privacy Principals please contact us using the contact details below. Please ensure to include contact details for us to contact you regarding your complaint.

Our Privacy Officer will consider your complaint and respond as soon as reasonably possible, but not more than 30 days after receiving the complaint.

If you are unsatisfied with the outcome of your complaint or we do not respond within 30 days you may refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

If you wish to gain access to your personal information, request us to update or correct the personal information we hold about you, make a complaint about a breach of your privacy or contact us with a query about how your Personal Information is collected or used please contact our Privacy Officer using the details set out below.

Postal address: PO Box 490

Collaroy Plateau 2097 NSW, Australia

Email: office@gracecitychurch.net

Please make sure that any request for access includes a full description of the personal information you are referring to.

If the law dictates that we refuse you access, we may do so.

Further Information

For more information on privacy please refer to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s website at: http://www.oaic.gov.au or contact them at 1300 363 992.

Updates

This Privacy Policy will be updated periodically and the most recent version will be published on this webpage and its terms will take effect from date of posting. We recommend you visit this website to get the most updated version of this Privacy Policy.