First Unitarian Church of Worcester

First Unitarian Church of Worcester:  On Line Directory Privacy Policy

This policy is effective as of June 16, 2014.

In a Nutshell

• This on line directory is primarily an electronic church directory with added social networking features.
• Only members and active friends of the church may access any personal information on this site.
• As a member or active friend, some of your information (name, address, phone number, email address) is available to other users by default, even if you did not provide the information via the Web. You can change how much is visible once you are signed in.
• If you wish to have all your personal information removed immediately, without first gaining access and signing in, please contact the church office.
• You may receive periodic email messages via this site. You may disable this feature by using the link at the bottom of the email you receive.
• First Unitarian Church does not share your personal information with third parties. Only members, active friends, and staff of First Unitarian Church and technical support staff from Power Church Plus who are involved with the operation of this site have access to your information.

Please read this entire document, so you have a complete understanding of what we do and how we use your personal information.

Overview

This Privacy Policy is designed to help you understand how The First Unitarian Church of Worcester collects and uses the personal information you decide to share, and help you make informed decisions when using the on line directory accessible by link from www.firstunitarian.com

This site is primarily a church directory, with added features that support social networking and other online and offline communication.

As a member or active friend of First Unitarian Church of Worcester you provide the church your contact information.  Your contact information is made available to other members and active friends through the on line directory (just as it was through the hard copy directory.)

Sensible defaults are chosen regarding how much of your personal information is displayed to other members and active friends who use the on line directory. This is meant to protect your privacy while still facilitating basic communication and networking by allowing others in the church to contact you in a few basic ways. You have control over what information (if any) is displayed to other Users of the on line directory.

If you have questions or concerns regarding this policy, contact our Church Administrator at drossio@firstunitarian.com  .

On Line Directory Access

Only members and active friends of The First Unitarian Church are given access to the on line directory.

This restriction to members and active friends protects your private information from people who wish to use it for inappropriate and undesired purposes. All pages in the on line directory containing personal information are protected from accidental or purposeful access by people unrelated to The First Unitarian Church. Only the sign in page, and other help documents such as this one, are available to everyone who views this Web Site.

Generally, when a member or active friend ends their involvement with the Church, their access to the on line directory is revoked. In a few rare circumstances, access is maintained for members or active friends no longer attending the church but still involved.

People with a known history of abuse or those with a criminal record are not given access to the site and its data.

Children Under Age 16

We strive to protect children online. No one under 16 years of age is allowed to sign into the on line directory by default, nor is their information available to others using the on line directory. In order to allow children under 16 to sign in, a parent or guardian must first sign in, read this Privacy Policy, and give consent on the Privacy page.

The Information We Collect

We collect these types of information:

• Personal information (such as name,  address, phone number, email address)you knowingly choose to disclose, either:
  • via our website
  • via phone, email, postal mail, etc.
  • via forms you complete, electronic or otherwise
• Technical information collected by our server as you interact with our Web Site (such as the internet path by which you accessed our site)

When you provide information to the Church, such as your name, your email address, your telephone number, your address and any other personal or preference information that you provide to us, this information may be recorded in our membership/active friend database. The on line directory uses that information in order to:

• Provide limited contact information (based on your privacy settings) to members and active friends of First Unitarian Church who use the on line directory
• Provide contact information to Church Staff and elected leaders
• Customize content, news or otherwise, provided to you upon signing into the on line directory
• Customize announcements, flyers, and other ministry related information sent to you via email, postal mail, etc.

When you enter the on line directory, we collect your browser type and IP address. This information is gathered for all on line directory visitors. In addition, we store certain information from your browser using "cookies." A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's computer tied to information about the user. We use session ID cookies to confirm that users are signed in. These cookies terminate once the user closes the browser. If you choose the "Remember my email" option on the sign in screen, we use a persistent cookie that stores your email address (but not your password) to make it easier for you to sign in when you come back to the Web Site. You can remove or block this cookie using the settings in your browser if you want to disable this convenience feature.

When you use the on line directory, you may form relationships, send messages, perform searches and queries, form groups, set up events, and transmit information through various channels. We collect this information so that we can provide you the service and offer personalized features. In most cases, we retain it so that, for instance, you can return to view prior messages you have sent or easily see your contact list. When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information.

You post User Content on the on line directory at your own risk. Although we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your pages, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other Users of the on line directory. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that User Content you post on the on line directory will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the on line directory. You understand and acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of User Content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other Users have copied or stored your User Content.

Use of Information Obtained

Your profile information, including but not limited to your name, home phone, and address are displayed to other members and active friends with access to the on line directory to enable you to connect with them. We may occasionally use your name and email address to send you notifications regarding new services offered by the on line directory that we think you may find valuable.

Information about your children under 16 years of age — even the fact that you have children under 16 — is never displayed without your consent.

Profile information is used by the on line directory primarily to be presented back to and edited by you when you access the service and to be presented to others permitted to view that information by your privacy settings. In some cases where your privacy settings permit it (e.g., posting to your wall), other on line directory users may be able to supplement your profile.

Profile information you submit to the on line directory will be available to other users of the on line directory according to the privacy settings you have in place.

We will send you only service-related announcements from time to time through the general operation of the service. For instance, if someone posts on your wall, you may receive an email alerting you to that fact. Generally, you may opt-out of these communications, which are not promotional in nature.

Your password is encrypted using industry-standard technology.  No church staff, technical support staff, nor anyone else can get access to your password in its unencrypted form.

Sharing Your Information with Third Parties

The On Line Directory of First Unitarian Church is about sharing information with other members and active friends, while providing you with controls that restrict them from accessing certain information. You choose the information you provide to others through the on line directory. We do not knowingly provide contact information to third parties. We share your information with third parties only in limited circumstances where we believe such sharing is:

• Necessary for the operation of the service, i.e. server operators.
• Legally required, i.e. at the request of governmental authorities conducting an investigation, to verify or enforce compliance with the policies governing our on line directory and applicable laws, or to protect against misuse or unauthorized use of our on line directory.

Unlike most sites on the Web, the on line directory of First Unitarian Church limits access to site information by third party search engine "crawlers" (e.g. Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask). We block access by these engines to all personal information.

We may provide information to service providers to help us bring you the services we offer such as a third party used to host the service at a co-location facility for servers or to send out email updates about the on line directory.

The on line directory may contain links to other web sites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other web sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our on line directory to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information. This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by The First Unitarian Church of Worcester.

Changing or Removing Information

Access and control over most personal information on the on line directory is readily available through the profile editing tools. Users may modify or hide any of their profile information at any time by logging into their account. Some information changes will be updated immediately, while other changes require approval from the church administrator before being seen. Changing privacy settings is always immediate. Individuals who wish to hide all of their information completely may do so on the Privacy page. Removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time but will not be generally available to users of the on line directory.

Because a person's limited personal contact information is made available on the on line directory without them having signed in, anyone who wishes to have their information removed from the site may contact the church office at 508-757-2708 and speak with the Church Administrator or email the church administrator at drossio@firstunitarian.com  to have their information removed immediately.

Where you make use of the communication features of the on line directory to share information with other individuals, however, (e.g., sending a private message to another user) you generally cannot remove such communications.

Security

We take appropriate precautions to protect our users' information. Your account information is located on a secured server behind a firewall. Because email and instant messaging are not recognized as secure communications, we request that you not send private information to us by email or instant messaging services. If you have any questions about the security of the on line directory, please email the church administrator at drossio@firstunitarian.com .

Notices and Revisions

We reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy at any time. Non-material changes and clarifications will take effect immediately, and material changes will take effect within 30 days of their posting on the on line directory. If we make changes, we will post them and will indicate at the top of this page the policy's effective date. We therefore encourage you to refer to this policy on an ongoing basis so that you understand our current privacy policy. Unless stated otherwise, our current privacy policy applies to all information that we have about you and your account.

Contacting Us

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, please contact the Church Administrator at drossio@firstunitarian.com. You may also contact us by phone at 508-757-2708 or mail at 90 Main Street, Worcester, MA 01608.