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, photographs, videos, email address, or address) or in conjunction with any other information. The processing of personal data is governed by [the Data Protection Bill/Act 2017 the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (the “GDPR” and other legislation relating to personal data and rights such as the Human Rights Act 1998].

Who are we?

This Privacy Notice is provided to you by the Parochial Church Council (PCC) of All Souls Church which is the data controller for your data.

The parish of All Souls, Langham Place is made up of a number of different organisations and office-holders who work together. The PCC works together with:

  • the Clubhouse charity and it’s trustees
  • St. Paul’s Trust and it’s trustees

As the parish 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 parish 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 parish and a description of what data is processed and for what purpose is set out in this Privacy Notice. In the rest of this Privacy Notice, we use the word “we” to refer to each data controller, as appropriate.

How do we process your personal data?

We will comply with our legal obligations to keep personal data up to date; to store and destroy it securely; to not collect or retain excessive amounts of data or store data for longer than is necessary; 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 enable those who undertake pastoral care duties as appropriate (e.g. visiting the bereaved);
  • To enable us to meet all legal and statutory obligations (which include maintaining and publishing our electoral roll in accordance with the Church Representation Rules);
  • To carry out comprehensive safeguarding procedures (including due diligence and complaints handling) in accordance with best safeguarding practice;
  • To deliver the Church’s mission to our community, and to carry out any other voluntary or charitable activities for the benefit of the public;
  • To administer the parish membership records;
  • To fundraise and promote the interests of the church and charity;
  • To manage our volunteers;
  • To maintain our 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 and that may be of interest to you. These may include information about campaigns, appeals or other fundraising activities;
  • To process a grant or application for a role;
  • We may process sensitive personal data relating to non role holders including, if appropriate, to comply with legal requirements and obligations to third parties.


What data do we process?

  • Names, titles, and aliases, photographs.
  • Contact details such as telephone numbers, addresses, 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, date of birth, marital status, nationality, education/work histories, academic/professional qualifications, employment details, hobbies, family composition, and dependants.
  • Non-financial identifiers such as passport numbers, driving license numbers.
  • Financial identifiers such as bank account numbers, payment card numbers, payment/transaction identifiers.
  • Other operational personal data created, obtained, or otherwise processed in the course of carrying out our activities, including but not limited to IP addresses, logs of accidents, injuries and insurance claims.
  • The data we process is likely to constitute special category data because, as a church, the fact that we process your data at all may be suggestive of your religious beliefs. We may also process other categories of sensitive personal data: racial or ethnic origin, sex life, mental and physical health, details of injuries, medication/treatment received, political beliefs, labour union affiliation, data concerning sexual orientation and criminal records, fines and other similar judicial records.

What is the legal basis for processing your personal data?

Most of our data is processed because it is necessary for our legitimate interests, or the legitimate interests of a third party (such as another organisation in the Church of England). An example of this would be our safeguarding work to protect children and adults at risk. We will always take into account your interests, rights and freedoms.

Some of our processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation. For example, we are required by the Church Representation Rules to administer and publish the electoral roll, and under Canon Law to announce forthcoming weddings by means of the publication of banns.

We may also process data if it is necessary for the performance of a contract with you, or to take steps to enter into a contract. An example of this would be processing your data in connection with the hire of church facilities.

We will also process your data in order to assist you in fulfilling your role in the church including pastoral and administrative support or if processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation.

Religious organisations are permitted to process information about your religious beliefs to administer membership or contact details.

Religious organisations are also permitted to process special categories of data in the course of legitimate activities with appropriate safeguards and on condition that the processing relates solely to the members, to former members or to people who have regular contact with us in connection with our purposes and that their personal data are not disclosed to outside bodies without their consent.

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 it is necessary for the performance of the data controllers’ tasks or where you first give us your prior consent. We may need to share your data with

  • The appropriate bodies of the Church of England;
  • Our agents, servants and contractors. For example, we may ask a commercial provider to send out newsletters on our behalf, or to maintain our database software;
  • Other clergy or lay persons nominated or licensed by the bishops of the Diocese of London to support the mission of the Church in our parish. For example, our clergy are supported by our area dean and archdeacon, who may provide confidential mentoring and pastoral support. Assistant or temporary ministers, including curates, deacons, licensed lay ministers, commissioned lay ministers or persons with Bishop’s Permissions may participate in our mission in support of our regular clergy;
  • Other persons or organisations operating within the Diocese of London including, where relevant, the London Diocesan Board for Schools and Subsidiary Bodies;
  • Other persons or organisations who provide mutual assistance to the church in delivering our mission to our community, and to carry out any other voluntary or charitable activities for the benefit of the public.

How long do we keep your personal data?

We will keep some records permanently if we are legally required to do so. We may keep some other records for an extended period of time. For example, it is current best practice to keep financial records for a minimum period of 6 years to support HMRC audits. 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 regulatory purpose(s)).
  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 consent easily by telephone, email, or post (see Contact Details below).
  7. The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (see Contact Details below).

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. 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 Privacy Policy, 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.

Changes to this notice

This document is the All Souls Church, Langham Place Privacy Policy version 1.0. We keep this Privacy Notice under regular review. This Notice was last updated in May 2018. For information on previous versions please contact the Data Protection Manager using the contact details listed at the end of this policy.

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:

The Data Protection Manager, All Souls Church, 2 All Souls Place, London, W1B 3DA
Email: partners@allsouls.org

You can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office on 0303 123 1113 or via email https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email/ or at the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire. SK9 5AF.