Data Protection
Privacy and Website Policies
Immanuel Mar Thoma Church Cardiff is committed to protecting your privacy and handling your personal data securely, respectfully, and transparently in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018.
This policy explains how we collect, use, and protect any personal information you provide, the lawful bases we rely on, our third-party service providers, and how our website handles cookies and analytics.
Information We Collect
We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide when you contact us via email, telephone, or the website contact form — such as your name, email address, phone number, and message contents.
For parish members and regular attendees, we may also hold registration details including names, addresses, contact numbers, and dates of birth to support pastoral care, parish administration, and sacramental registers.
Lawful Basis for Processing
Under the UK GDPR, we process personal information under defined legal bases depending on the context: consent (when you submit an enquiry or choose to enable analytics cookies), legitimate interests (to communicate with you, coordinate church life, maintain security, and prevent spam), and legal or canonical obligations (for official church records such as baptism and marriage registers).
How We Use and Retain Your Information
We use your information to respond to enquiries, provide pastoral care, share church announcements, and manage parish ministries. Your details are accessed solely by authorised clergy, church officers, and trustees. We never sell, rent, or trade personal data to third parties for marketing.
We keep personal information only for as long as necessary. General enquiries received via our website or email are retained only until your query has been resolved, after which they are securely deleted. Parish registration and sacramental records are maintained in accordance with church administrative and historical record-keeping requirements.
Third-Party Services and Processors
To support our website and communications, we work with selected trusted service providers: FormBold is used to deliver messages submitted through our contact form securely to our parish inbox; Google reCAPTCHA protects our contact form against automated spam and abuse; and an embedded Google Map helps visitors find our Cyncoed worship centre.
Where these providers process data outside the United Kingdom, transfers are protected by standard contractual clauses or equivalent safeguards recognized under UK data protection law.
Cookies and Website Analytics
If you accept analytics cookies, we use Google Tag Manager and Microsoft Clarity to understand how visitors find and use our site and to improve parish information for the community.
If you decline, Google Tag Manager and Microsoft Clarity will not load and analytics cookies are not set by our site. You may change your preference at any time using the Cookie Preferences button in the footer.
We do not use advertising cookies or share analytics data with third parties for commercial purposes.
Your Rights and Contact
Under UK data protection law, you have the right to access the personal data we hold about you, request corrections, or ask us to erase your records. To exercise any of these rights, or if you have questions about our data practices, please contact the Vicar or Parish Secretary using the details on our Contact page.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), at ico.org.uk or by calling 0303 123 1113.