PRIVACY

Harvets Church Privacy Policy

About this policy

Harvest Church (Harvest Christian Church Assemblies of God Horsham Inc.) respects your privacy. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, how we look after it and how you can see or correct it.

It applies to everyone who connects with us: members, visitors, volunteers, donors, parents and children, across all our campuses, services, groups, events, our website and our online services.

We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

The information we collect

We only collect what we need for the ministry and activities you're involved in. Depending on how you connect with us, this may include:

You don't have to give us your details to attend a service. Some things, like enrolling a child in kids ministry or serving on a team, do need them.

How we collect it

Most of the time we collect information directly from you, for example when you:

Sometimes we receive information from someone else, such as a parent registering their child, or a family member passing on a prayer request. When that happens, we'll treat it with the same care.

Why we use it

We use your information to:

We won't sell your information, and we won't use it for anything unrelated to the life of the church without your consent, unless the law requires or allows it.

Sensitive information

Some information is treated as "sensitive" under privacy law. For a church, this includes your religious beliefs (the fact that you attend or are a member) and any health information you share with us, such as a child's allergies or medical needs, or something you tell a pastor in confidence.

We only collect sensitive information with your consent, and only use it for the purpose you gave it to us. Pastoral conversations stay with the pastors and leaders who need to know in order to care for you.

Children. 

We collect children's details from their parent or guardian. We use them to keep children safe in our programs, for example at check-in and in an emergency. Our child safety practices follow the Victorian Child Safe Standards.

Some of these providers store data outside Australia, for example in the United States. We choose providers that protect personal information to a standard comparable to Australian law.

We may also share information when the law requires it, when it's needed to prevent a serious threat to someone's life, health or safety, or when we need to report a child safety concern. We won't share your details with other organisations for their own marketing.

Photos, video and livestreams

Our Sunday services are filmed, livestreamed and published online, including on YouTube, Facebook, podcast platforms and Church Center. If you're in the auditorium, you may appear in the background of these recordings. If you'd rather not be filmed, let one of our team know and we'll point you to seating away from the cameras.

We sometimes take photos at services and events for our website, social media and printed material. We won't publish a close-up photo of a child, or name a child, without a parent or guardian's permission. If you'd like a photo of you or your child taken down, contact us and we'll remove it.

Our website, social media and emails

Our website may use cookies and basic analytics to understand how it's used, such as which pages are visited. This information doesn't identify you personally. You can turn cookies off in your browser settings.

We use automated tools to share our sermons to our own Facebook Page and other channels. These tools only publish church content to accounts the church manages. They don't collect information about the people who view, like or comment on our posts. When you interact with us on Facebook, Instagram or YouTube, those platforms' own privacy policies apply.

If you've signed up for emails or messages from us, every email includes a way to unsubscribe, or you can contact us at any time to stop hearing from us.

Keeping it safe

We take reasonable steps to protect your information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access. Access to our systems is password protected and limited to the people who need it, and paper records are kept secure.

We keep information only as long as we need it, or as long as the law requires. Financial and giving records are kept for at least 7 years for tax purposes, and child safety records may be kept for much longer. When information is no longer needed, we delete or destroy it securely.

If a data breach is likely to cause someone serious harm, we'll let the people affected know and follow the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme where it applies.

Seeing, correcting or removing your details

You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you at any time, and ask us to correct anything that's wrong or out of date. Many people can also update their own details through Church Center.

You can also ask us to remove your details, for example if you've moved on from Harvest. We'll do that unless we need to keep a record by law, such as giving records or child safety records.

There's no charge for any of this. We'll respond within 30 days. If we can't give you access to something, we'll explain why.

Questions and complaints

If you have a question about this policy, want to access your information, or are unhappy with how we've handled it, please contact us:

We'll look into any complaint and respond within 30 days. If you're not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.

We may update this policy from time to time. The current version is always on our website.