Legal
Privacy Policy
How we collect, use, and protect your personal information.
Last updated: 3 October 2026
Who we are
Alive Church is a registered charity in England and Wales (charity number 1192806). We are the “controller” of the personal information described here. That means we decide how it is used, and we are responsible for looking after it.
- Address: Alive House, Nelson Street, Norwich NR2 4DR
- Email: office@alive.me.uk. For anything about your data, put “Data protection” in the subject line and it will reach the person responsible.
This policy covers our website (alivechur.ch), the Alive Church app, and the church’s own records of the people it cares for.
The short version
- We only collect what we need to run the church and look after people.
- We never sell your information, and we never use it for advertising.
- The app has no advertising or third-party analytics tools, and it doesn’t track you across other apps or websites.
- Automatic attendance uses your location or Wi-Fi. It is off until you turn it on, you can turn it off at any time, and it is never available to under-18s.
- You can delete your account from inside the app, and we will delete it within 30 days.
What we collect
When you create an account
- Your first name, email address and password. We only store the password in scrambled (hashed) form.
- Your date of birth. We use it to keep adults’ and young people’s groups separate and to meet the law on children’s data. We never show it to other members.
- Anything else you choose to add to your profile, such as a surname, phone number, profile photo or social media links.
When you use the app or website while signed in
- Groups: which groups you ask to join, whether you were accepted, and whether you came to group meetings (leaders take a register).
- Messages: posts, comments and reactions in your groups, and earlier versions of any post you edit.
- Prayer requests: what you post to the prayer wall, and whether you post it with your name or anonymously. We also count how many people have prayed for each request.
- Bible and study activity: studies you have read or saved, highlights, sermon notes, answers you write to study questions, reading plan progress, talks you have watched, and the streaks and badges these earn you. We keep these on our server so they follow you between devices.
- Serving: rotas you are on and your replies to them.
- Household: if you link your account to your family’s, who is in your household.
- Reports and blocks: if you report something you have seen, or block someone, we record that (see “Reporting and blocking” below).
- Your settings: for example, which emails you want to receive.
Kept only on your phone. Your reader settings (text size and so on) stay on your device. The app also keeps a sign-in token on your phone so you don’t have to sign in every time.
Giving. Online gifts are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your card details. When you are signed in with a verified email address, the app shows your giving history: the amount, fund and date of each gift. We read that from our records and from Stripe, matched to your email.
Contact forms, event sign-ups and the newsletter. We collect what you type into the form. We only send the newsletter if you tick the box to ask for it.
Automatic attendance (optional)
If you are 18 or over, you can let the app record when you are at a Sunday service. The app never does this unless you have switched it on. It asks you separately and plainly, it is never bundled into our terms, and you can switch it off in Settings at any time.
When it is on:
- Your phone watches for you arriving at our building, using precise location (a boundary around Alive House) or the name of the Wi-Fi network you join.
- When you arrive at a service, the app sends us either your location at that moment or the Wi-Fi network’s name. We check the Wi-Fi name against the church’s own network and don’t keep it. We record the service, the method used and, for location, the coordinates. We delete the coordinates after 30 days and keep only the service and the method.
- You can also check in by scanning the code on screen at church. That uses the same switch.
- Your phone’s operating system asks for your permission separately before the app can use location or Wi-Fi information.
Why this matters, and what it leads to. Going to church can reveal your religious belief, which the law treats as a special kind of information. So we only do this with your explicit consent. After you have been at two Sunday services, our system records you as a member of Alive Church. If you would rather we didn’t, leave automatic attendance switched off.
Turning it off stops the app watching your location and Wi-Fi straight away, and no new check-ins are recorded. Check-ins already recorded stay as part of the church’s attendance records (the service and the method; any coordinates are still deleted at 30 days). If you want those removed too, ask us and we will delete them.
Your profile photo and the camera
If you add a profile photo, we resize it and store it on our own server. Other people in the church can see it wherever your name appears. The app uses the camera only when you choose to take a profile photo or scan the check-in code at church. It never reads your photo library in the background. When you pick a photo, your phone’s own picker hands us only the photo you chose.
Notifications
At the moment the app doesn’t send push notifications, so it doesn’t collect a device push identifier. If that changes, we will ask you first and update this policy. Emails from us follow the choices you make in Settings.
Reporting and blocking
You can report a group post, comment, prayer request or story, and you can block another member.
- A report records what you reported, why, and that it was you. Only the church’s moderators see who made a report. The person you reported is not told who reported them. A reported item disappears from your view straight away.
- A block hides that person’s posts and comments from you. It is private: the person you block is never told, and we don’t log it as an action against them. You can unblock them at any time.
Who can see what
- Other members can see your name, photo and the groups you share with them. You appear in the member directory only if you are a member aged 18 or over. If you’d rather not appear there, tell the church office and we will hide you.
- Group leaders can see who is in their group, the group’s messages and the group’s attendance.
- A parent or guardian linked to a young person’s household can see which groups that young person is in and when they are serving.
- Church staff can see what they need for their role. Every time a staff member opens or changes a person’s record, it is logged.
- Prayer requests are seen by signed-in people in the church app, with your name unless you chose to post anonymously. The church team checks any request our word filter flags before anyone else sees it.
- Nobody outside the church sees your church information. We never share a list of members with anyone outside the church unless you have agreed to it.
Why we use it (our lawful bases)
The law requires us to name a reason for each use of your information.
| What | Why we’re allowed to |
|---|---|
| Running your account and the app’s features | Contract. You asked for an account, and this is how we provide it. |
| Groups, registers, households, messages, prayer wall, serving rotas, reports and blocks | Legitimate interests. We need these to run the church and care for people, including keeping children safe. |
| Recording who is a member | Legitimate interests. For religious-belief information we also rely on the exemption for not-for-profit religious bodies (UK GDPR Article 9(2)(d)). We keep it inside the church. |
| Automatic attendance | Your explicit consent, which you can withdraw at any time. |
| The email newsletter | Your consent (the tick box). You can unsubscribe from any email. |
| Safeguarding records and the log of who did what | Legal obligation and legitimate interests. |
| Gift records and Gift Aid | Legal obligation (HMRC and charity accounting). |
| Website statistics | Legitimate interests. Understanding which pages help people, so we can improve the website. |
Website statistics
When you visit our website, we record the pages you view, the site that referred you, your browser and device type, and your IP address. We also set a cookie that groups your visits into one session. If you are signed in, we link the visit to your account. We don’t look up your location from your IP address, and we don’t send your IP address to anyone. We keep these records for 12 months. See our Cookie Policy.
The app doesn’t record which screens you view. If you open a website page from the app, it is counted like any other website visit.
Who helps us (processors)
We use a small number of trusted companies to run our systems. They only handle your information on our instructions.
| Company | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean | Hosts our website, app server and database | New York, USA, under UK international transfer safeguards |
| Twilio SendGrid | Sends our emails | USA, under UK international transfer safeguards |
| Stripe | Processes online gifts. Stripe is also a controller in its own right for payment and fraud checks | USA and EU, under UK international transfer safeguards |
| Google (YouTube) | Plays our sermon videos. The app uses YouTube’s privacy-enhanced (no-cookie) mode. Our services are live-streamed on YouTube | USA |
| Google Fonts | Supplies the website’s fonts. Your browser fetches them from Google (the app doesn’t) | USA |
How long we keep it
| Information | How long |
|---|---|
| Your account and profile | While your account is open |
| Deleted accounts | Within 30 days of your request we remove your name, contact details, photo, sign-ins, studies, notes, highlights, reading progress, streaks and badges. We keep the records listed in this table that the law or safeguarding requires; they then show as “Deleted member” |
| Group membership decisions, group registers, group messages (including messages that were held back) | Kept as safeguarding records for as long as safeguarding guidance requires. We don’t delete these automatically; our safeguarding lead reviews them |
| Automatic attendance check-ins | The service and method are kept as attendance records. Location coordinates are deleted after 30 days |
| Your consent to automatic attendance, and your request to delete your account | Kept permanently, as proof of what you asked for |
| Reports you make | Kept with the moderators’ decision, as a safeguarding record |
| Everyday activity log (who changed what) | 90 days |
| Safeguarding activity log (including who opened a person’s record) | Kept until our safeguarding lead decides to dispose of it |
| Website statistics | 12 months |
| Gift records | 7 years after the end of the financial year they relate to |
| Newsletter subscription | Until you unsubscribe |
| Reader settings | On your phone only. They are deleted when you delete the app |
Children and young people
- Under 13s can’t create an account. If a younger child tries, we don’t store the date of birth they entered. A parent or carer should contact the church office instead. Church staff may record a younger child as part of a family’s household or a group register.
- 13 to 17-year-olds can have their own account. They can only join groups that a leader has accepted them into, and adults can’t join youth groups. Young people don’t appear in the member directory, and they can’t use automatic attendance. Messages in youth groups are visible to the group’s adult leaders, and any message our word filter flags is held until an adult has checked it.
- A parent or guardian linked to the young person’s household can see which groups they are in and when they are serving.
- We follow the UK’s Age Appropriate Design Code: young people’s settings are private by default, we don’t profile them, and they never see advertising.
- Safeguarding comes first. If we are worried about a child’s safety, we may share information with the right authorities, as the law allows.
Your rights
You have the right to:
- see the information we hold about you (a “subject access request”);
- correct anything that is wrong;
- delete your information. You can delete your account in the app from your account settings (“Delete my account”), or you can email us;
- restrict or object to how we use it;
- take a copy to use elsewhere, where the law allows;
- withdraw consent for anything we do with your consent (automatic attendance, the newsletter) at any time, without affecting what happened before.
We reply within one month. There are a few things we must keep even if you ask us to delete them, mainly safeguarding records. If we can’t delete something, we will tell you what and why.
If you’re unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office: ico.org.uk, 0303 123 1113.
Keeping it safe
Everything travels over an encrypted connection. We only let staff and leaders see what their role needs, and we log who opens and changes people’s records. We never put the contents of pastoral notes into our logs. If a security breach affects you, we will tell you when the law requires it.
Changes to this policy
When we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. If a change is significant, we will tell you in the app or by email.
Contact us
Email office@alive.me.uk or write to Alive Church, Alive House, Nelson Street, Norwich NR2 4DR.