Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

Peterborough Ghana Seventh-day Adventist Church ("we", "us", "our") is a Christian community based in Peterborough, England. This privacy policy explains how we handle information when you visit our website or contact us through it.

If you have any questions about this policy, please contact us at [email protected].

2. Cookies — We Don't Use Them

This website does not set any cookies on your device. We do not use:

• Tracking or analytics cookies (no Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, etc.)
• Advertising or retargeting cookies
• Third-party marketing cookies of any kind

The only session data used on this site is a temporary server-side session for the password-protected admin panel. This session exists only while an administrator is logged in and is destroyed immediately on logout. No session cookie persists after the browser is closed.

3. Information We Collect

We collect two categories of information:

a) Information you provide voluntarily

• Contact form submissions — your name, email address, subject, and message. This is stored securely in our database so we can respond to your enquiry.
• Email correspondence — if you email us directly, we will keep a record of that communication.

b) Anonymous website analytics

To understand how our website is used, we collect anonymous, non-personal visit and interaction data. This includes:

• Visit data — date/time, country (from Cloudflare, IP not stored), device type, browser type, referrer domain
• Scroll depth — how far down the page a visitor scrolls (e.g. 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%)
• Section views — which sections of the page become visible (Hero, About, Ministries, etc.)
• Clicks — which buttons or links were clicked (e.g. "Contact Us", "Plan a Visit"), counted in aggregate
• Time on page — approximate time spent on the homepage
• Form interaction — whether the contact form was started or submitted (no content is captured)

Each page load generates a random temporary key used only to group events from that single visit. This key is not stored between visits, is not a cookie, and cannot identify you across sessions. No IP address is stored. No mouse movement or keystrokes are recorded.

Our lawful basis for this processing is legitimate interest (Article 6(1)(f) UK GDPR) — understanding reach and usage of our church's public communications to improve our content and outreach.

4. How We Use Your Information

Information submitted via the contact form is used solely to:

• Respond to your enquiry or prayer request
• Follow up on a planned visit or ministry interest

Anonymous visit analytics are used solely to understand website traffic patterns and improve our content.

We will never use your contact details to send unsolicited marketing emails, and we will never pass your details to third parties for commercial purposes.

5. Data Storage & Security

Contact form submissions and anonymous analytics data are stored in a password-protected database hosted on our web server. We take reasonable technical steps to secure this data, including encrypted admin access and input sanitisation.

Uploaded images (shared in our Media section) are stored on our server. These are publicly visible as part of the church gallery.

6. Third-Party Services

Our website uses or loads resources from the following trusted third parties:

• Cloudflare (Tunnel & CDN) — this website is served through Cloudflare's network. All traffic passes through Cloudflare's servers before reaching ours. Cloudflare acts as a security and performance layer and may process your IP address and request metadata in accordance with their privacy policy. Cloudflare also provides us with your country code via the CF-IPCountry header, which we use for anonymous analytics as described above. See Cloudflare's Privacy Policy.
• Google Fonts — for typography. Google may log your IP address when fonts are loaded. See Google's Privacy Policy.
• YouTube / Vimeo — if you click to play an embedded video in our Media section, that platform may set its own cookies and log your visit. We use no-cookie embed URLs where available.

We do not control these third-party services and encourage you to review their privacy policies.

7. Your Rights (UK GDPR)

Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:

• Access — request a copy of any personal data we hold about you
• Rectification — ask us to correct inaccurate data
• Erasure — ask us to delete your personal data ("right to be forgotten")
• Restriction — ask us to limit how we use your data
• Objection — object to our processing of your data

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at [email protected]. We will respond within 30 days.

If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

8. Data Retention

Contact form messages are retained for as long as necessary to handle your enquiry, typically no longer than 12 months unless you are an active member of our church community. You may request deletion at any time.

9. Children's Privacy

Our website is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has submitted information to us, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page with an updated date. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.

11. Contact

For any privacy-related questions or requests, please contact:

Peterborough Ghana Seventh-day Adventist Church
Peterborough, England
Email: [email protected]