Privacy Policy

Last updated: August 07, 2025

1. Introduction

Grace Church Orkney (“we,” “us,” or “our”) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and protect the data you provide to us through our website.

By using our website, you agree to the collection and use of your information in accordance with this policy.

2. Data We Collect

We collect two types of data from our website users:

  • Information you provide directly: When you use our contact form, you voluntarily provide us with your name, email address, and the content of your message.
  • Automatically collected information: Like most websites, we use analytics services (such as Google Analytics) to help us understand how our site is used. This involves the automatic collection of data such as your IP address, browser type, operating system, the pages you visit, and the time and date of your visit. This data is collected in an anonymised form and does not personally identify you.

3. How and Why We Use Your Data

We process your personal data on the basis of legitimate interests, which are described below:

  • To respond to your inquiries: The name, email address, and message you submit via our contact form are used solely to communicate with you and address your request.
  • To improve our website: The anonymised data from analytics services is used to analyse website traffic, understand user behavior, and make improvements to the functionality and content of our website.

4. Cookies

We use cookies to collect information about your website usage for analytics purposes. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that is stored on your browser or the hard drive of your computer. You have the right to accept or reject cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. Please note that disabling cookies may affect the functionality of our website.

5. Data Sharing and Third Parties

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer your personal information to outside parties.

6. Data Retention

We retain your personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected. For contact form submissions, we will retain your data for as long as it takes to resolve your inquiry and for a short period thereafter for our records. Anonymised analytics data is retained for a standard period as set by the analytics provider.

7. Your Rights Under GDPR

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you have the right to:

  • Request access to the personal data we hold about you.
  • Request rectification of inaccurate or incomplete data.
  • Request erasure of your personal data (“the right to be forgotten”).
  • Object to processing of your data.
  • Request a restriction on the processing of your data.
  • Withdraw consent at any time where we rely on consent as a legal basis for processing.

8. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise any of your rights, please contact us by email: gracechurchorkney@gmail.com

9. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. Please refer to the “Last updated” date at the top of this page to see when the most recent update was made.