Privacy notice

Purpose of this Notice

This privacy notice sets out how we use and protect any personal information that you give The Friends of St Mary's Church Somers Town (The Friends), registered charity no. 1211058.

The Friends are committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified or which can be identified as relating to you personally, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy notice.

The Friends may change this notice from time to time by updating this page, in which case the “last updated” date at the bottom of this page will also change. You should check this page regularly to ensure that you are happy with any changes.

Our contact details

If you have any questions relating to this privacy notice or how we use your personal data, please send them to the Chair of The Friends of St Mary's Church Somers Town, E-mail: StMarysChurchFriends@gmail.com.

The type of personal information we collect

We currently collect and process various types of personal information, including the following:

If you are a member: Name, title, postal address, phone number, email address, individual or household membership, card details or bank account details, gift aid declaration (where applicable), and banking details if a standing order is completed.
If you are a volunteer: In relation to adult volunteers: name, postal address, phone number, email address, confirmation as to age (18 or over) and areas of interest for volunteering. In the case of a volunteer under 18: the same details for a parent or guardian, as well as the name of the volunteer.
If you have joined our Save St Mary's campaign: Name and email address.
If you send an email or letter to The Friends: Name, email address or other contact details provided to us.
If you make a donation to The Friends: Name, postal and/or email address, gift aid declaration (where applicable) and payment details, including card or bank account details.
If you are a trustee: Name, postal address, email address, phone number and date of birth.

How we get the personal information and why we have it

All of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you and is used for the purposes of furthering the objects of The Friends.

We use the information that you have given us in order to:

process applications for membership, volunteering or participation in events and manage your relationship with The Friends;
in the case of volunteers, contact you about your volunteer work or volunteering opportunities and manage your training, welfare and operational rota;
in the case of members, send news, publications or other information relating to St Mary's Church or The Friends that we think you may find interesting, using the email address or postal address which you have provided;
maintain a register of members;
submit information required by HMRC for Gift Aid purposes;
facilitate the keeping of accurate accounting records;
in the case of those signing up to our Save St Mary's campaign, send update information on that campaign;
respond to your queries about our organisation or St Mary's Church;
in the case of trustees, maintain the registration of The Friends with the Charity Commission for England and Wales.

What we do with your data

We may share relevant information of volunteers with other volunteers in the same group for the purposes of managing and coordinating your volunteer work for The Friends.

The data we collect may be shared with our technology suppliers.

We will share your data if we are required to do so by law – for example, with HM Revenue and Customs.

We will NOT sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties, for them to use for advertising, marketing or any other purpose.

We will not use your information to contact you for market research purposes.

Our legal basis for processing your data

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are:

(a) Your consent, in respect of the personal data of The Friends members, volunteers, Save St Mary's campaign members, website users and those who contact us via email or post. You are able to remove your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting the Chair of The Friends on StMarysChurchFriends@gmail.com.

(b) We have a legal obligation under section 30 Charities Act 2011, in respect of the personal data of trustees, and under the relevant accounting rules, in respect of accounting records that include personal data such as membership income or donations.

How we store your personal information

Your information is securely stored. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect.

The Friends is based in the UK and we store most of your data within the UK. Some organisations which provide services to us may transfer your data outside the UK but we’ll only allow this if your data is adequately protected under the local law in the relevant country or if we are certain your data will be appropriately safeguarded in accordance with standard contractual clauses issued by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”), the UK data protection regulator.

We will hold your personal information in accordance with the principles of the General Data Protection Regulation (and associated legislation) and for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, after which we will dispose of your information securely.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy notice. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy notice applicable to the website in question.

Your data protection rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

Your right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.

Your right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.

Your right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances (except in respect of trustees where we are processing data in order to comply with a legal obligation).

Your right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

Your right to withdraw consent to processing - You have the the right to withdraw consent to the processing of your personal information at any time by contacting the Chair of The Friends on StMarysChurchFriends@gmail.com (except in respect of trustees where we are processing data in order to comply with a legal obligation).

Your right to data portability - You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances (except in respect of trustees where we are processing data in order to comply with a legal obligation).

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you.

Please contact us at StMarysChurchFriends@gmail.com if you wish to make a request.

How to complain

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, please contact us at StMarysChurchFriends@gmail.com

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK data protection regulator, if you are unhappy with how we have used your data or handled your complaint.

The ICO’s address:

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk

Page last updated: 10 March 2025