Introduction

At Gateway Baptist Church, we are committed to protecting the privacy of individuals who provide personal information to the church. We have adopted the Australian Privacy Principles and the Australian Privacy legislation as the basis for the ways we collect, hold, use and disclose any personal information we collect or receive.

Personal information is information or an opinion about an identified person, or a person who is reasonably identifiable.

Purposes for collecting, holding and using personal information

Gateway Baptist Church only collects, holds and uses personal information for:

• providing appropriate care, support and services to people,
• administration of the church and its activities,
• enabling financial giving, receipting and payments for people,
• contacting people who volunteer in any of the church’s ministries, activities or events,
• providing people with information about progress with our ministries and projects and advising of coming events, services and opportunities within our ministries,
• providing professional support and health services to clients of Gateway Counselling and Wholeness Centres,
• managing the employment of staff members,
• fulfilling government directives.

Disclosure of personal information

We do not disclose any personal information to external organisations or individuals, in Australia or overseas, without the consent of the person unless we are specifically required by law to do so.

We do not share any personal information with other organisations or individuals.

Types of personal information we collect and hold

Gateway Baptist Church collects contact information such as names, addresses, contact numbers, email addresses and other information such as church and group memberships and attendances, dates of birth, family members, baptisms, Blue Card numbers and areas of service.

For clients of Gateway Counselling & Wholeness Centres, information such as appointment details and Medicare numbers (where relevant) is collected in order to provide those services. We may also collect details of your COVID vaccination status if we are required to do so by the Queensland Government. Confidential session notes are made by the treating professionals and are handled in accordance with the requirements of their Professional body. These notes are not available to Gateway Baptist Church.

For staff members, additional information directly relating to their career and current employment is collected in accordance with our Human Resource Management policies.

For financial transactions we collect credit card details and these are handled in accordance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. We collect bank account details for people we make payments to.

Sensitive information such as criminal records, political opinions or associations, trade union memberships, philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation or practices, biometric information and the like is not collected.

Information pertaining to health is collected only where necessary, such as:

• in Children’s Ministry and Youth Groups to ensure their health needs are met and health risks are properly managed;
• for pastoral care purposes, to support people through health challenges;
• allergies to assist in safely catering at church or ministry events; and
• in providing health services through Gateway Counselling and Wholeness Centres.

Information about country of birth and language background may be collected to enable our staff and volunteer teams to best connect, support and assist our church family.

Images and videos may be captured during our services and events and used for promotional and archival purposes. Our morning services (mainly at Mackenzie) may be filmed and/or live streamed and may be made available on our website. In the process of capturing a worship experience, our footage may include images of participants, mainly from behind. Any person who wishes to opt out of appearing in any of Gateway’s promotional, archival or live stream material, may contact our Office Manager on 07 3291 5900 or email admin@gatewaybaptist.com.au.

How we collect and hold personal information

We collect personal information through verbal interaction, completion of paper or online forms such as event registration forms, connect cards, application forms, client intake forms and group information forms. This information is collected from the person themselves or from a parent/guardian/carer (for children or where otherwise necessary). Where attendance records are collected, this is done through sign-in sheets, online registration systems or direct observation.

The information collected is either disposed of after its use or held in one of the following forms:

• Secure online databases including Church Community Builder (main church system), MailChimp (for email mailing lists), PowerDiary (for Gateway Counselling and Wholeness Centre clients); Xero and Sage Intacct (for employees’ payroll and payments for individuals); NAB Transact (online merchant facility for making payments). All data transmission to and from these databases is fully encrypted.
• Paper based client and staff files, or small group lists. Paper based files containing sensitive information are kept in locked cabinets and can only be accessed by approved staff, contracted professionals and volunteers of the relevant ministry area.
• Small amounts of personal information are held for ministry-specific purposes in documents and spreadsheets on church computers with access protected by individual profiles and passwords.

All staff and volunteers who have access to personal information held by Gateway Baptist Church are bound by codes of conduct and formal agreements that require full compliance by the staff member or volunteer with this privacy policy and associated procedures.

Gateway Baptist Church ensures reasonable steps are taken to make sure that all information collected is accurate, up to date and protected from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Network access privileges are assigned to a limited number of staff for the purpose of updating, modifying and editing. These positions are reviewed regularly to determine if they are still appropriate. Ministry leaders with access to personal information are made aware of this policy and associated procedures and are required to comply with them.

Archived material is stored in a secure and confidential environment.

How people may access and/or seek correction of their personal information

Any person whose personal information is held by Gateway Baptist Church may request access to that personal information and, where necessary, request correction to that information.

Some of the personal information we hold about people is held in Church Community Builder (CCB) and can be accessed and corrected by the person by logging into that system from our website (www.gatewaybaptist.com.au).

Alternatively, to view or seek correction to personal information held by Gateway Baptist Church a person may contact our Office Manager as follows:

• Office Manager, Gateway Baptist Church, PO Box 2033 Mansfield, QLD 4122; or
• Phone 07 3291 5900; or
• Email admin@gatewaybaptist.com.au.

How people may ask or complain about how we deal with their personal information

Any person whose personal information is collected or held by Gateway Baptist Church may ask or complain about how we collect, hold or use their personal information, by writing, phoning or emailing our Office Manager using the contact details above.

Any complaint received will be handled in accordance with our Complaints and Feedback Policy which is available on our website at www.gatewaybaptist.com.au/feedback or from our office.

Availability of this policy

This policy is available on our website at www.gatewaybaptist.com.au/privacy.

Paper copies are available on request from our office or by contacting our Office Manager as above.