New privacy protection forms are available and must be completed by anyone who wishes to keep in touch. It covers all the ways we may store and use personal data about, mainly your contact details, but also more sensitive things like photos or prayer requests.
The forms must be returned to Sarah, or dropped into the Rectory. They have gone out with the Mardle, are available at the back of churches, and also online here:
Without your consent to be in touch, we will have to remove your contact details from our records, and you might miss important communications.
It has been a few years since we last did a full round of privacy forms. It is important that we don't leave it for longer than five years, and that when we do renew all the forms, we make sure everybody has an opportunity to state their preferences about how we hold and use personal information. We don't want to lose touch with you, and some things require you to give your consent.
One interesting area is the "prayer chain", referred to as such from the days when it was a chain of praying people, each link in the chain passing the prayer item on to the next link, and everybody in the chain knowing their place in it. Back in the days when we relied on the telephone to communicate! Today, we have a WhatsApp group, where items for prayer are shared and messages disappear after 90 days. Often the needs shared are about medical issues that might arise. This is important in terms of data protection, because two areas of personal data that have extra protections in law are religious and medical. So, if we are sharing personal data about someone's medical condition on a Christian prayer group, which reveals a certain religious affiliation, then we have to be doubly careful about it. For this reason, we will produce a separate single item consent form, just for giving consent to information for prayer being shared. If you would like to pray for someone and share their details, make sure you ask for this form first.
In practice, we have a policy of requiring written consent from whoever is being prayed for, for whatever information is shared on the WhatsApp group. Parents may give consent on behalf under 13s, but may not once their child reaches adulthood. For those 13-17, both the teenager and the parent must give consent. If we do not have written consent, which sometimes happens in an emergency situation, then our policy is to invite prayer using generalised anonymous terms, e.g. "please pray for someone who is having major emergency surgery this afternoon following a traumatic incident". It is important that we do stick to this policy, not only in the "Prayer Chain" group, but in all the ways we might share news about others for prayer. It is a privilege to be part of a loving and supportive community that cares and wants to pray, and wonderful that we have so many who will stand by us, and those we love, at times of need. The data protection and privacy side of things just makes sure that we are safe and in control of what is shared about us.
As well as that particularly sensitive area, the full form covers all the bases of how we as a group of churches store and use your data. We retain your data until you ask us to remove it from our records or we do this complete renewal of privacy forms, whichever happens first. Thank you in advance for engaging this, and thereby honouring and respecting the right we all have to privacy. We look forward to receiving your forms in due course, and if you know anyone else who would appreciate one, please do pick up a form from the back of church. Thank you.
A full privacy policy, updated October 2025, is available in paper format on request or online here:
Privacy Policy for Mulbarton Group of Churches - Oct 2025
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