Privacy Policy

Who we are

Our website address is: https://www.lajollaunitedmethodist.org.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

Comments and Forms

When visitors leave comments on the site or submit a contact form or other form (volunteer sign-up, etc.) we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. When visitors subscribe to comments on a post, we collect the name of the post, the visitor’s email address, and the date and time of the subscription.

Visitor name and email addresses are provided to Akismet by Automattic to check for spam.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service, also by Automattic, to see if you are using Gravatar. After approval of your comment, your profile picture may be visible to the public in the context of your comment.

The Automattic privacy policy for both Gravatar and Akismet is available here.

Email and Text Subscriptions

If you choose to sign up for church news to be sent to you vie email and/or text messages, our third-party vendor, MailChimp, collects and stores your email address and news preferences (see the MailChimp privacy policy) in order to provide the desired church-related information. Church staff and authorized volunteers can view your contact information on MailChimp and update your subscriptions. you can opt out of any subscription at any time by visiting the MailChimp website. If preferred, users may simply contact the church office to unsubscribe.

Online donations

If you choose to make an online donation to the church, our third-party vendor, Vanco, collects and stores details about your donation. You’ll find more information in the Vanco privacy policy. Some of the information, like the donor’s name, donation amount, and designation, if any, is forwarded to the staff or authorized volunteers at the church. At no time does the church ever have access to credit card or banking information.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics to track website visitors. Google Analytics uses cookies. Check Google’s privacy policy for more information.

Who we share your data with

Your data may be viewed by staff and volunteers who work on the website or in other aspects of the church’s ministry.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. If you subscribe to comments, the subscription information is retained indefinitely. If you contact us, the website generates an email to one or more staff or volunteers. That email may be retained indefinitely.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.